


Mermaids Singing

by Lyrica (LyricaB)



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Crossovers: The Sentinel, Crossovers: The X-Files, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2014-11-04
Packaged: 2017-12-11 00:58:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 41,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/792187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LyricaB/pseuds/Lyrica
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The comfort zone - that's how Jim would have described his relationship with Blair, warm and unthreatened. That is, until three Suits from the FBI show up  to see his files on a missing persons case, and Jim learns some truths about Blair. And some about himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> // = overheard dialogue
> 
> This story was originally printed in rac's wonderful zine, Wounded Heroes. And in addition to having a zine to hold in my hands, I discovered something about being published in a zine--when you're ready to post to the net, you get to edit yourself all over again! :-) Therefore, this version is slightly different from the WH version, but not significantly different. 
> 
> My thanks to rac (and her beta readers). Any mistakes are mine, because I played with it after they fixed it.:-) And also thanks to rac for inviting me to be a part of such a quality zine. It was a lovely way to be re-introduced to zinedom after so many years away. 
> 
> I apologize in advance for this story. About halfway through, not only did it grow a plot!, but I realized I was writing the kind of story _I_ didn't like to read--a crossover, an almost everybody's gay story, an everybody does everybody story (almost), a Jim  & Blair screw somebody else story. But...it demanded to come out anyway. And rac would have sent the bounty hunter me if I'd backed out at that stage. :-) 
> 
> If you'd rather read the pretty version, with italics instead of those damned //, follow the link to Mermaids at www.enook.net/woundedheroes.htm, and don't forget to check out the other great stories while you're there.

> Go, and catch a falling star,  
>  Get with child a mandrake root,  
>  Tell me, where all past years are,  
>  Or who cleft the devil's foot.  
>  Teach me to hear mermaid's singing.  
>  _Song_ , John Donne

It was like changing the radio station from easy listening to heavy metal, the way the song of Blair Sandburg's heart went from steady to percussive. Jim Ellison, bent over a stack of files at his desk, twitched when Blair's heartbeat swung from its normal, elevator-music background thrum to a rap song played at top volume on inadequate speakers. He looked up, pen poised over paper. 

Though Blair was working at another detective's desk near the back of Major Crimes, the flush of body heat that accompanied the change in tempo was like a furnace blasting on in the middle of the night. A rush of warm air poured off him, pushing aside the cool and blanketing Jim. The heat, the sound, set his bones to vibrating and his skin to tingling as if he'd become the speaker through which the music was blasting. 

On the heels of those instant, autonomic reactions came Blair's quick intake of breath, the soft "Oh, my god." The oxygen in the room was swallowed up in the dry silk, musky scent of Blair. Having no other option for filling his lungs, Jim breathed it in. Blair's pupils dilated, and his own followed suit. Blinking against the sudden change in the level of light striking the back of his eyeballs, Jim followed Blair's gaze, searching for the cause of his agitation. 

She wasn't difficult to spot. 

The woman was one of three strangers just stepping out of the elevator. She and two men paused just outside Major Crimes and looked right, then left, then straight ahead in unison, their heads moving like they were puppets attached to the same string. Three well-dressed marionettes, one with a smattering of freckles and hair that gleamed like new pennies, even under the ugly fluorescent light of the hallway. 

Jim shook his head ruefully. He was accustomed to it now, the way Blair's reaction to a woman could set his own nerves to dancing. Could make him want her warm fingers on his skin as if the attraction was his own. It was part and parcel of being a Sentinel, feeling someone's reactions so keenly, especially Blair's. It was a curse, considering how often he was dragged along on the ride of Blair's lust, and a boon, considering that his sex drive was lackluster compared to his partner's. 

Blair had the quickest eye in the building for a beautiful woman. But if this beautiful woman was what Jim suspected, Blair might get the quickest turndown in history. Simon had warned him that the FBI wanted to look at their evidence in the cases of three missing persons, and that he could expect agents to arrive this afternoon. If Jim was any judge of suits, these three were the Suits. 

He looked them over, taking in the de rigueur understated clothing, the flow of dark overcoats, conservative ties, the woman's expensive silk blouse showing just a sliver of pale skin...definitely Suits, though a bit better dressed and definitely better looking than most. Beside the two men, both as tall as Jim and one easily as muscular and broad shouldered, the woman was tiny, almost delicate. But there was something about the way she held herself that said she wasn't as delicate and dainty as she looked. In fact, of the three, she looked like she was the most likely to kick ass. But, god, was she gorgeous! Nobody had ever accused Blair of having bad taste. 

The same way they had paused at the jerk of a string, they entered Major Crimes as a group, then stopped again just over the threshold. The woman and one man followed the lead of the broad-shouldered man between them by just a fraction of a second, marking him as the Head Suit. In the jungle, he would have been the one on which all the snipers centered their crosshairs. An experienced soldier wouldn't stand near him on a bet. 

Jim grinned as Blair, excitement evident in every step, headed towards the three visitors. He stretched his long legs out, propped them on the edge of desk, crossed his ankles and leaned back to enjoy the show. This was going to be good, watching his avant-garde partner put the moves on a tight-assed, self-possessed Bureau agent. But then, it wouldn't be first time his partner had been frostbitten. Or, for that matter, the first time a Suit had succumbed to the Sandburg charm. 

Too bad Brown wasn't there so they could make a little bet. Wasn't fair, since Jim had an unfair advantage. He could reach out a little, stretch out with his senses, and tell even before Blair whether the answer was yes or no. But it kept him in beer money. And it awed the other detectives to think that he was so woman-savvy. Well...the ones who didn't know him well enough to know that he was pretty much clueless. 

Even though there was no money involved, he opened up just a bit. Not so much that a ringing phone or an overdose of perfume would send him reeling. Just enough to tell that the china doll Suit didn't even know Blair was alive, though he was bearing down on her with determination. Her gaze slid over him, then passed on without hesitation, checking out the room and its occupants. 

The lazy grin twitched at the corners of Jim's mouth, and he laced his fingers behind his head. And jerked them down just as quickly, his feet slamming to the floor. Because it wasn't the woman an agitated, breathless Blair Sandburg was arrowing towards. It was one of the men, the big, bald-headed, imposing one in the center. 

And the man was very aware that Blair was alive. He detached himself from his puppet shadows, stepping forward quickly. The leap of the stranger's pulse was overwhelming, as loud as the drumbeat of Blair's. His eyes, already dark as bitter chocolate, dilated to as black as Blair's. 

"Blair?" 

"Walter!" 

Blair's voice was high pitched, excited, pleased. The stranger's was lower, restrained, but the spontaneous smile that warmed his face made up for it. It wasn't a face that smiled often. Jim knew that just from looking at him, at the stern lines of his face. Just from seeing the astonished, dropped-jaw reactions of the other Suits. 

Blair and the man met in the center of the room. They stared at each other, and for a moment, the electricity that crackled between them was so strong, it was almost visible; so fervent, Jim thought they were going to hug. 

He started to get up. But then they didn't hug, and he rocked back down into the hard, butt-shaped depression in his chair. 

They shook hands vigorously, still staring at each other, smiling, Blair's fingers clinging to the bigger hand. And then they _did_ hug, the stranger's longer arms folding around Blair, Blair's arms snaking inside the elegant overcoat. Jim stood up, shoving the chair away from his legs. It squeaked loudly, but he barely noticed it, lost as it was in the sounds of bodies touching, cloth sliding on cloth sliding on skin, and Blair's delighted laughter muffled against a broad shoulder. 

"Oh, man, it is _so_ good to see you." Blair and the man untangled, thumped each other on the back, making their embrace rough and masculine, totally acceptable in the middle of Major Crimes. 

Totally acceptable, except that it wasn't. Jim couldn't explain it, didn't have time to explain it--the sudden flash of protectiveness for his partner. The flare of anger that leapt up as Blair's scent mingled with the alien, buttoned-down smell of the stranger. Something uncoiled low in his belly and flared out, up into his throat, down into his groin where residual arousal still curled and twined. 

Blair and the strange man separated, still shaking hands. Still touching. Moving so slowly that it was more like they were holding hands. "It's been too long," Blair said. 

Three strides, and Jim was across the room, hovering at his partner's back. Reaching out to put a hand on Blair's shoulder before he could even think what it meant or how it might look. It took every ounce of self-possession not to tug backwards and yank Blair to safety, to keep his fingers light and easy as he felt the bunch and slide of muscle beneath flannel. 

"Jim," Blair turned his head, gifting him with a dazzling, guileless smile. "This is Walter Skinner, an old friend. I haven't seen him in years. Walter, my partner, Detective Jim Ellison." 

It made Jim feel a little stupid, kind of silly, to be over-reacting because Blair was excited to see someone. Acting like Blair was his toy and someone else had just picked him up to play with him. Childish to think that Blair had only one good friend and he was it. That Blair had no past, existing only in his present. He took a deep, cleansing breath, but all he did was suck in those co-mingled scents, the warm, familiar smell of Blair overlaid with the starched, sun-drenched, gun oil, wool-blend odor of the stranger. 

Skinner started to turn towards Jim, then checked himself. "Tell me you're not a cop," he growled at Blair. 

The censure in the man's tone made Jim stiffen even as the voice slithered down his spine. It was steel. Suede. Leather slapping on flesh. A throaty, animal snarl even deeper than anything Jim could manage. It made him flush with anger. And it came closer to affecting him the way Blair's voice did than any other voice ever had. He could feel his body bend to it, shift with it. He couldn't even form the words to snap, _What's so fucking bad about being a cop?_

"I'm not a cop," Blair said obligingly, laughing and not at all offended, for himself or for Jim. "I'm sort of a consultant, gathering data for my doctorate, but I ride with Jim." 

The half-truth rolled off Blair's tongue easily, just like it always did. But Jim noted and tagged that it was closer to the truth than the police-as-a-closed-society mumbo-jumbo Blair usually laid on anyone who asked. Blair didn't want to lie to this man. 

"Tell me you're not still a Section Chief," Blair teased. 

Skinner nodded, mollified, not offended at Blair's rejoinder. In fact, there was that twitch at the corners of his mouth again. "I'm still an Assistant Director," he supplied. 

Jim had the feeling that all that kept the man from grinning, other than the innate stiffness of his face, was the presence of the two agents who had stepped closer. 

Assistant Director Skinner extended his hand to Jim, nodded curtly. "Detective." 

Was it his imagination, or did Skinner's gaze flick over the hand Jim still had pressed to Blair's shoulder? Jim tried again to shake off his agitation, the weird, shivery warm/cold rippling in his body. He resisted the urge to break Walter Skinner's arm rather than shake his hand, especially since Skinner had let go of Blair to offer the hand. He was being silly, stupid, childish...an ass. 

He released Blair, too, and leaned forward slightly to accept the firm grasp of the other man's hand. A rough hand, like his own. Strong and sure and callused. No soft, manicured, paper-pusher's hand, although surely as an Assistant Director, that was exactly what he was...a paper-pushing Suit. But with the hands of a workman and the eyes of an assassin. Brown and shiny and calculating behind wire-rimmed glasses, missing nothing as they assessed him, took his measure, then held his gaze, giving him no hint of whether he'd been found lacking. 

Jim returned the scrutiny with a steely gaze of his own, and Skinner gave him a small nod. As he stepped back, Jim looked at the agent who stood slightly behind Skinner and to his right. The man was a touch taller than Skinner, leaner, younger, handsome in a smooth, sulky, sultry way. And the shock of hair like dark cornsilk that had fallen down over his forehead didn't come close to hiding his frown. 

The woman was still standing a couple of steps back, but as Jim had with Blair, the man had moved so close that he was in danger of being elbowed if Skinner took a deep breath. And he was glaring at Blair exactly the same way Jim suspected he'd been glaring at Walter Skinner. 

Skinner gave the younger man a glare of his own, effectively pushing him back with just the power of his gaze, and introduced his agents. The gorgeous redhead was Agent Dana Scully, and she had a handshake as steely as Skinner's. The sulky man was Special Agent Fox Mulder. And he had a fox's changeable, greeny-brown eyes to go with his odd name. 

Jim relaxed a little, still standing close enough to Blair that he could brush his back with his arm. He took another one of those deep, cleansing breaths that Blair had taught him, and it actually worked. Maybe because Blair's pupils had contracted back to normal and his heartbeat had softened to its comfortable Muzak-like background thrum. The tension slipped out of Jim's muscles, and the agitation that had been simmering just below the surface eased. 

Simon joined them, starting up another round of introductions and handshaking and Simon's 'welcome to Cascade' speech as he pointed them towards his office. "You, too, Ellison," he said as Jim reached to guide Blair away. "And Sandburg." 

Jim took still another deep breath, annoyed but relieved, as always, that all the new age, breathing-from-his-diaphragm, let-the-negative-energy-go crap worked. Blair had reduced him to this. To deep breathing like some hippie wannabe. To getting a woody because his partner was dogging after some female. Except... Except... The skin between his eyes stabbed at his nose as he frowned. That wasn't what Blair had been doing, was it? There hadn't been any female. And there hadn't been any dogging... 

Blair's voice broke through. "I've known Walter for years," he was explaining to Simon. "We met when he was SAC of the Seattle office. I kind of got into a jam, and Walter helped me out." 

Simon paused in the act of pulling out chairs around the conference table and arched his eyebrows in exaggerated surprise. "You, Sandburg, in a jam? What are the chances of that?" 

Blair laughed and clapped Simon on the shoulder. "Good one, Simon." 

Simon shooed him away, pointing towards a chair. Then, pleasantries over, he pulled out the files of the three cases and started in, and Jim had to give himself over to the discussion. What Blair liked to call his cop brain took over, crowding his personal agitation to the back of his mind. His gaze flicked over the evidence as Simon parceled it out. 

The three missing men looked enough alike to be brothers. Acted enough alike to be best friends. Hell, they looked more alike than he and Stephen, but that was part of the mystery. Because the three men weren't related. Apparently, they had never even met. They were all single, all loners, all clerks in middle level, but low-key, jobs-one in the local Social Security office, one in a laboratory that conducted testing for cosmetics companies, and one in a large medical clinic. 

They had disappeared within hours of each other, leaving behind no relatives, no friends, and belongings so bland, so nondescript, that Rafe had commented that the first place to check would be the circus, because it was obvious they all ran away to escape their humdrum lives. None of them had ever been in trouble with the law. Never even had a parking ticket. And, of course, never had their fingerprints taken. But there were fingerprints all over their homes. The same fingerprints. 

Jim concentrated as Simon ran down everything they knew. He followed the evidence as Simon laid it out, hoping that just one more perusal might net him something he'd missed before. Beside him, Blair shifted closer, leaning into his personal space as Jim leaned towards the array of papers. Blair's elbow touched his arm as if by accident, but Jim knew what he was doing. Grounding him so that he could let his senses roam free if he wanted. And he did want to, but it wasn't to peruse the photos once more, or to read the fine print on the reports. It was scrutinize the three strangers sitting around the table. 

The more Simon spoke, the less attention they paid to him, as if they'd heard it all before. As if the recitation was boring them. Except they weren't bored. They were agitated. They looked at each other, quick, surreptitious glances that he wasn't meant to see. And they each, in their own way, tightened down. Like springs, winding tighter and tighter. Mulder asked a couple of questions that seemed, more than anything else, designed to speed the meeting along. Though Skinner asked more pointed ones, it was still only minor, innocuous information they solicited. 

But Jim saw why Skinner's agents were so surprised at his show of emotion with Blair. The man was totally no-nonsense. Intense and brusque and to-the-point. Sitting back with one long arm draped across the arm of his chair, he looked relaxed. But there was nothing relaxed about his eyes or his square jaw or the severe line of his mouth. Or the quick, concentrated scrutiny of his gaze. He was almost surely ex-Army or Marine. How had Blair ever gotten to know a guy like that? How had Blair ever gotten to know him well enough to make him smile? 

Simon finished, perched on the corner of the table. "So...does this look similar to your missing persons cases?" He still had one last file in his hand, but he didn't offer it up for the group. Not yet. Instead he looked at Skinner and waited. Not blinking as the silence grew thick and tense. 

Mulder looked at Scully, then at Skinner, who lifted one of the crime scene photos and gave it a cursory glance. "I assume that's all the information you have on these cases, Captain Banks." Skinner's voice was deceptively bland. 

Simon, his expression just as bland, fished in his shirt pocket for his cigar. "Were you expecting something else?" 

Mulder looked at Skinner again. The bigger man lifted his jaw just the barest fraction of an inch, giving permission in shorthand body language. Mulder repeated Skinner's gesture of shuffling the photos. "We were expecting...residue. A chemical residue, maybe at their homes, or somewhere nearby. Maybe near the last place they were seen." 

Jim's attention zoomed in on Mulder. Skinner was difficult to read because he held himself so tightly in that fake relaxation, but Mulder, with his gorgeous, loose body language and that incredibly animated face and his voice dropping clues all over the room, was an open book. He was annoyed, obviously reined in by Skinner's presence, and _chemical_ hadn't been the word he'd wanted to use. 

"Oh," Simon said easily. "You mean like this?" He opened up the last file, passed out the photos from it. Photos of greasy-looking, greenish-black stains, one rough and almost round, one an odd, oblong kidney shape, and one that was long and narrow and looked suspiciously like the outline of a body. A body that had boiled and melted. "You mean this _chemical residue_ that burned through the glove of one of my forensics people. This _chemical residue_ that ate the sole off a shoe of one my clumsier patrolmen, but when we went back to test it, packed all the punch of lime gelatin. This _chemical residue_ that none of my people have been able to identify." 

Jim ticked them off his bullshit meter, one by one, as the Suits tried to sit there and look calm. He barely needed enhanced senses to tell him they were anything but. The moment the first photo hit the table...muscle tension, elevated pulse, eyeballs flicking from side to side, fingers clenching. He bet dental records on Skinner would show a worn track where his jaws connected. Mulder was a few seconds from bouncing off the walls. And Scully was wiggling one of her feet, staring down at her shoe. She was scared. Just plain scared. 

"Yeah," Mulder said, and his mouth twitched as if he saw humor in the situation that everyone else missed. " _That_ chemical residue." He, too, stared at the photos, one after the other, turning some completely around in his hands and looking at them upside down. 

Skinner pushed his glasses up and massaged the bridge of his nose. He'd wanted badly to deny that their cases were similar, Jim could tell that. Now there was no way he could. 

Simon took a deep breath, gathered up all the photos of the stains and put them back into the unmarked file. "This information doesn't leave this room. We haven't released it to the press. The only people who know about this aspect of the disappearances are my people. Until now." He paused. "So... Care to fill us in on what's going on? And what is this stuff?" He indicated the photos he'd retrieved. "We figured some kind of toxin or warfare agent, but the samples have degenerated to harmless slime. Unfortunately, unidentifiable slime." 

Again, that significant glance between Mulder and Skinner, but this time, Skinner shook his head. Mulder scowled, looked at Scully for support, then subsided back in his seat when she frowned at him, too. Skinner shook his head at Simon. "I'm sorry, Captain Banks. I'm afraid I can't. That information is--" 

"Need to know," Jim growled. "And we don't need to know." The contrition in Skinner's voice had been genuine, not at all like the oily regret Jim had experienced with so many other Bureau agents. But knowing that Skinner didn't like keeping them in the dark didn't mollify him at all. "Now why am I not surprised to hear that sentiment pop up in a conversation with the Feds?" 

Annoyance flickered across Skinner's face. 

"Jim..." Simon warned. 

Blair chuckled deliberately, trying to ease the tension. "He's got you there, Walter." 

Obviously not accustomed to having someone snickering at him in a meeting, Skinner frowned at Blair, too, but it only made Blair grin wider. After a minute, Skinner shrugged. It was probably as close to good-natured as the man got. "I'm sorry. I know you don't want to hear it. I don't really want to say it, but...my hands are tied." 

"Yeah." Jim pushed back, sending a couple of pictures flying across the table. The chair scraped, loud and gritty, across the floor. "That's what you guys always say." He stood up. As far as he was concerned, the meeting was over. Just another waste of his time by the Suits. 

Skinner stood up with him, squared off facing him. "Look, Detective--" 

"Are you taking over the case?" Simon interrupted. 

Skinner hesitated, torn between facing Jim down and answering. He finally opted for staying where he was, leaning towards Jim, but looking back at Simon. "No. It's your case." 

Mulder stood up, too, protesting, "Sir--" 

Skinner quelled him with one glance. 

The power in it made Jim shiver. The guy could melt sand with those eyes. And melt the clothes right off his back with that voice. 

"There's no federal crime here, Agent Mulder." Skinner swung back to Jim. "It's your case. But I can tell you this much. You won't solve it." 

Jim bristled, but Skinner held up a hand. "No reflection on your abilities, Detective. If we took over the case, we wouldn't solve it either." Behind him, Mulder bristled, but Skinner didn't even spare the agent a glance this time. "It's not solvable. You'd do better to write this one off and move on to something where you can make a difference." 

He motioned towards the door. "Agents." 

Jim watched as the two stood in unison. Scully smiled at him as she went past. Mulder actually dared his boss' ire and stopped, murmuring "Sorry," as he shook Jim's hand. Then he swept on past, and Jim dropped his hand down, covering the card Mulder had left behind in it. 

Skinner nodded to Simon. "Captain. Thank you." He glanced at Blair, his face so blank that it spoke volumes. Then he swept out the door, the long lines of his coat and his two shadows swirling elegantly in his wake. 

Jim swore as the door closed. "What the hell was that all about?" 

"Look, Jim." Blair put a gentling hand on his arm. "Walter's a good guy. I'll talk to him." 

Without waiting for Jim's opinion, Blair took off after Skinner. Jim dialed up his hearing, actually catching up to Skinner before Blair did. Actually catching the end of a heated, but low voiced conversation with Mulder. 

//--isn't the end of it,// Mulder argued, anger heating his voice. //I know there's more of them here. You know there'll be more murders. I won't just walk away because there's no Federal crime.// 

Beside him, Simon, said softly, "What, Jim?" 

Jim held up his hand for silence and flipped the card up from his palm. 

Simon took it and frowned over it. Mulder's business card. 

Mulder's words hadn't even elevated Skinner's pulse. It was old information. Mulder preaching to the choir. //I know,// Skinner answered, with such patience that Jim could tell it was a long used method of dealing with the volatile agent. //I know all that, Mulder. And we're not letting it go. I just don't want these people involved. There's no way to include them without putting them at risk. We'll let Agent Scully go on to Seattle to visit her family the way she planned. And you and I will stay here and try to find the others before the bou--// 

Scully interrupted. //I'll stay here with you and Mulder, Sir.// 

//That's not necessary, Agent. Mulder and I can handle it.// 

//Walter.// Blair caught up with them. //Hey, you're not chasing off to catch your Lear jet, are you?// 

//No. Mulder and I will be here another day or two. Agent Scully...// 

Jim took the card back from Simon and looked at it. "He called the cases _murder_. And he said these three weren't the last of it. And they're not giving up on the case. Skinner just doesn't want us involved. You think this is a sign Mulder wants to cooperate. Or is he just hoping to pick us for more information?" 

"Maybe we should let them have this one, Jim. There's something about it that's making my ass twitch." 

"You're right about that." He tuned back in to Skinner again. The man was speaking to Blair. Jim didn't have to hear the words to know that. All he needed was the warmth in Skinner's voice. 

//--staying at the Westin. Maybe we could have dinner?// 

"I'm not too happy about Blair being around this guy," Jim admitted. "Sandburg's too trusting." 

//Hey, yeah,// Blair said enthusiastically. //There's a new place just down the street. Supposed to be great. You'll love it. Italian.// 

Jim frowned at Blair's almost shorthand way of speaking to Skinner. Like Skinner's use of minute body movements to communicate with Mulder, it bespoke knowledge. But Blair hadn't seen the guy in years. How well could he know him? "Agent Scully's going on to Seattle to spend a few days with her family. But Mulder and Skinner are staying at the Westin. Blair's inviting Skinner to dinner at that new Italian place down the street." 

"Giulatto's? I've been hearing good things about that place. Maybe we should invite ourselves along." 

"Just what I was thinking," Jim answered grimly, reaching for the door. He didn't trust Walter Skinner, and with good reason. No matter how well Blair thought he knew him, Jim didn't want the guy alone with his partner. 

Simon clamped his unlit cigar between his teeth and stalked out ahead of him. "Hey, Sandburg, wait up," Simon called. "I was just telling Jim we should take our guests to dinner. There's a new Italian place over on Third that's supposed to be great." 

The three agents turned surprised faces on them. "That's just what Mr. Sandburg was suggesting," Mulder said, brow furrowed at the coincidence. 

"Imagine that," Simon grinned. 

Blair peered at Jim over the rims of his glasses. "Yeah, imagine." 

Jim just rocked back on his heels and tried to look innocent. It worked for Blair, about twenty times a day. He didn't see why it wouldn't work for him. 

The elevator pinged and the doors slid open. 

"We have to get Agent Scully to the airport, or she'll miss her flight to Seattle." Skinner moved towards the open doors, herding the two agents through them. "We'll meet you at the restaurant at 7:00?" 

The doors had just barely touched when Blair rounded on Jim. "Man, I can't believe you eavesdropped on me." 

So much for the innocent act. "I didn't eavesdrop on you, Chief. I eavesdropped on your Fed buddy. I got your part of the conversation by accident. They're not in any hurry to leave because they're working the case. Mulder called them _murders_. And they're looking for the next victims." 

Blair paled. "Murders? Victims? With an s?!" 

"Yeah. Maybe you can get your good guy friend off to the side tonight and ask him about that?" 

"I will," Blair responded calmly, not backing down. "But he probably won't tell me. I promise you, Jim, you can trust Walter. If he says he can't tell us, then there's a good reason." 

Simon watched Blair walk back to the desk where he'd been working, then turned to Jim with a raised eyebrow. 

Jim wanted to chase after Blair, to warn him to be careful, but damn! The kid was grown. He met Simon's questioning gaze and shrugged. When had Blair ever listened to him about something like this anyway? 

Simon headed back to his office, Jim back to his other case files. Skinner was right about that, at least. There were plenty of other cases to work. But he couldn't keep his attention on them. He kept straying back to the three Suits and their reactions to the pictures in Simon's office. Grimly, he pushed away his current files. Dragged the phone over and put his back to the wall so that he could talk privately but make sure nobody walked up on him. 

Simon came out an hour later and perched on the corner of his desk while he ran down what he'd learned. "It's all gossip and innuendo. The guys I know in DC are cops, but they're not getting official facts here, just what's been whispered around town. But one guy says Blair's right. Most people within the law enforcement community see Skinner as one of the good guys. Operates by the book, doesn't dish out bullshit, doesn't tolerate it. The weird thing is, Jerry said it's a good thing Skinner's a fair-minded person who doesn't throw his weight around. The rumor is he's got powerful connections who don't always operate within Bureau protocol." 

Simon frowned at that, but motioned for Jim to continue. 

"No surprise, but Mulder's the loose cannon. Jerry says Mulder's brilliant but just plain damned weird. Says everybody at Quantico called him Spooky behind his back. His division is something called the X-Files, and they investigate the cases nobody else wants or can solve. The rumor was they were assigned to Skinner so he could reel them in, but it looks like the exact opposite happened." 

"Them, who?" 

"Scully is Mulder's partner. But I can't figure her involvement. She's a doctor, recruited right out of medical school by the Bureau. But there's something bad going on with her. She was kidnapped a couple of years ago. She turned up in a hospital, almost dead. And if anybody knows where she was, or what happened, they're not saying. But Jerry's heard this strange, under-the-table rumor that Skinner figured into her return somehow. Whatever it is that happened, he says it'll never see the light of day." 

"Yep." Simon stood up. "Definitely makes me twitch. Good thing we're keeping an eye on the kid tonight." He wandered off towards the break room. 

Twitching wasn't the half of it. The whole thing set Jim's teeth on edge. Since the first phone call, he'd felt like he was chewing on tin foil. All those glossy reputations with sly hints of something dark bubbling underneath. It made him want to lock Blair in his room and only let him out when he was sure the whole bunch of them had left town. 

He was staring at an empty report form when Blair interrupted him. "Hey, Jim, we're going to have to hurry if we want to run by the loft before dinner." 

Jim looked up, surprised that it was past six. 

Blair seemed to have forgotten their conversation earlier. As they rode the elevator to the garage, he babbled on about the research he'd been doing for Jim, apparently not noticing Jim's silence. Or maybe just willing to let it go. But Jim couldn't let it go. As he pulled out into traffic, he asked, "Just how well do you know this Skinner?" 

Blair twitched, and his heartbeat dropped a blip in between the regular thumps. "I-uh...I met him while I was working on my Master's. I got into a jam with the Seattle cops. A bunch of us had been to a club. You know, letting off a little steam before the next semester started. I was driving, and the cops pulled us over. I'd only had a few beers, but the guy who owned the car, he was holding. They arrested us." 

Jim couldn't stop the grimace that tugged at his mouth. He turned towards the loft with a savage twist of the wheel that cut off two taxis and a courier on a bicycle. 

"Hey, man, take it easy!" Blair grabbed for the back of the seat to brace himself. "I didn't know the guy had stuff on him, I swear. I mean, I did my share of experimentation with grass and pills back in my undergrad days, but I was way past that by then. I couldn't have kept up the class load and all that I was carrying and still have been dicking around with anything harder than an occasional beer binge. I didn't know the guy had shit on him, but try telling that to a couple of cops on a double shift who've pulled over a car load of out-of-town college students." 

Jim pulled into a parking space across from the loft. Turned the engine off, but made no move to get out of the truck. Took a deep breath to cleanse the flush of anger he'd felt at the idea of Blair messing with drugs. 

Blair hesitated with his fingers on the door handle. Seeing that Jim wasn't going anywhere, he licked his lips and continued. "Walter was at the police station when they brought us in. For some reason, I don't really remember why, we started talking. He believed my story, and he put in a good word with the guys who'd picked us up. So, no arrest. No record. His office was working a case, and one of his agents needed an in into one of the local clubs. He remembered me and called. I helped him out. We got to be friends." 

"A club?" 

Blair's heartbeat picked up slightly. "Yeah. An--uh...an underground club, you know? One of those places where you practically had to know somebody to get an invite." 

"Uhm." Jim slid out of the truck, knowing he hadn't received quite the whole answer there. 

Blair followed, silent again. 

"So you haven't seen Skinner in a long time?" 

"Probably four years since I've _seen_ him. But we've kept in touch, just in a loose sort of way, you know?" 

Jim had a quick flash of insight, that satisfying click of detection when two plus two added up to four. In the months they had roomed together, Blair had received occasional postcards, usually picturing a skyline of some dull northeastern city, goofy cards on his birthday and Halloween, elegant ones at Hanukkah, one or two envelopes stuffed with clipped anthropology and archaeology articles. And, once, a clumsily wrapped book of beautiful but boring, classical poetry. All were signed with a bold, sloping W that Jim assumed was a woman's, especially since the few sentiments were auntish--Have a good holiday, or Thought this might interest you. Even the flyleaf of the book had said only, Where all past years are, W. At the time, it had seemed no more quirky than any of the other things that were constants in Blair's life. 

Jim took the stairs, too wired to wait on the elevator, and Blair huffed along behind him. He grimaced as he realized he had his own shadow, just like Skinner. And just like Skinner and his shadows, Jim's shadow wasn't telling him the truth. At least, not all of it. Enhanced senses were good for things other than knowing whether there was a perp with a gun around the corner, or whether his partner was about to score. He had a built-in lie detector. And a built-in bullshit detector. 

At the moment, Blair fell somewhere in between, in that obfuscation zone where he seemed to live. Everything he'd said was the truth. But his body was stressed. Pupils just a little bit off normal. Fingers a little too still. Mouth dry. That musky tang scented just a bit sharp. 

Jim sorted the mail, washed up the breakfast dishes they'd been too rushed to handle that morning, took his turn in the shower, spent five minutes staring into his closet, trying to decide what to wear. Another five trying to figure out why it was important. He didn't worry about his clothing this much when he was going on a date. 

And he still was ready before Blair, who was dressed much more like he was going to be trolling for co-eds than having dinner with business associates. But the kid, wearing jeans washed until they were soft and thin in strategic places and a casual white shirt opened to show off one of his tribal necklaces, did look good. And it made Jim's choice of khakis and turtleneck look even less casual. 

Giulatto's was crowded for a week night. Inside the glassed-in lobby, business-suited executives mingling with jeaned college students and sweatered tourists. The scents of scotch and sangria competed with perfume and garlic and tomato sauce. 

Jim's nostrils flared and he hesitated at the threshold. 

Blair lay a hand on the small of his back and pressed lightly. "You need a minute outside?" 

The warmth of his fingers seeped through Jim's shirt, into his skin. He shook his head. With Blair's presence to steady him, he took a deep breath and focused, tuning out most of the smells, toning down those he couldn't ignore. In the ribbons of scent, he found the faint, sweet odor of cigar and followed it to the door of the less crowded bar. 

The restaurant might be yuppie chic, but the bar was definitely old-style trysting place. Heavy oak paneling, faux gas lights flickering gold, lots of shadowy booths ringing the room. Simon was perched on a stool at the long, polished bar. He waved them over to where he and Mulder had already started on a before dinner drink. "I signed us up already. It'll be about twenty minutes." 

Jim signaled the bartender just as Skinner entered the room. Though he didn't see him until he was at his shoulder, Jim caught his elevated heartbeat, tipped off by the sudden volume of Blair's. 

Mulder was dressed like Blair, in casual jeans, but all Skinner had shed was the elegant overcoat and his glasses, revealing eyes that didn't look quite so hard without the shiny lenses protecting them. His double-breasted suit was so fitted at the waist that it made his shoulders look massive. 

The effect was...eye-catching. Blair's heart was thrumming with the pleasure of seeing an old friend, and Jim's spiked right along with it, for a completely different reason. 

The guy might be a Suit and a jerk, but he was impressive. The long coat had had made him look big and muscular, but it hadn't done him justice. Skinner's shoulders were wider than his own and impressively square. And his ass... Jim thought his eyes were going to pop out of his head as Skinner leaned over the bar and motioned to the bartender. And if they did, well, then Mulder's were going to be rolling around on the floor right there with his. Jesus, what an ass! 

It was a spectacular view and another piece of the puzzle. Mulder had a thing for Skinner. 

But then Jim couldn't exactly blame him. He appreciated a romp with a good-looking man himself. He had to be choosy and even more circumspect--couldn't afford not to be in his profession--but he wouldn't say no to an ass like that, no matter the circumstances. 

Not that Skinner was exactly giving out vibes that he was available. In fact, he'd barely acknowledged them. Intercepting the bartender before he could get to Jim, Skinner ordered two different beers by name, one of them a favorite of Blair's. He handed the bottle to Blair, pointed to a table over near the wall. It wasn't one of the shadowed booths, but it wasn't out in the open either. "Let's sit over there." 

Blair moved towards the table without ever looking at Jim or Mulder or Simon again. 

"Guess we weren't invited," Mulder laughed, but his gaze followed Skinner's backside all the way across the room, just like Jim's did. He pulled out the stool next to him. "Join us." 

Jim threw a leg over the stool and scooted it around so he was sitting at an angle to Mulder and Simon. Looking at the two men, but situated so he could see Blair reflected in the mirror behind the bar. He didn't know what he was worrying about. It wasn't like the guy was going to snatch Blair up, tuck him under an arm and run out the back door. 

Was there even a back door? Out of habit, Jim scanned the room, noting the hallway lit by a red neon Restroom sign and the dimmer Emergency Exit nearby. He settled back, shifting until he had Blair's reflection in a corner of the mirror. 

"Agent Mulder was telling me about his work," Simon said, and Jim nodded. He knew it meant _Pay attention. I'm working my way up to something_ , so he tried to watch the mirror with just one eye. 

Blair snagged a couple of coasters and plopped down, situating their beers, but Skinner remained standing. Looming over Blair. He loosened his tie, opened a couple of buttons and slipped the tie off. Even across the room, Jim could hear the silken hiss of it sliding around his neck. Then Skinner unbuttoned his coat and let it drop off his shoulders, folded it neatly across the chair beside him. His slacks pulled taut across his thighs as he sat down. 

Jim drew in a silent, appreciative breath. 

Skinner's shoulders, clad in pinstriped cotton that stretched and clung as he moved, were even more imposing without the padding of the coat. Every bit as impressive as his ass. And despite his size, his movements were graceful, powerful, contained...the whole getting comfortable thing was casual, but it still managed to look like a striptease. All that was missing was the bump and grind. 

Mulder was certainly appreciative. He'd turned completely around, facing his boss. All that kept Jim from doing the same was his grip on the edge of the bar. Even Blair was aware of Skinner's attributes. Mr. Hetero 'There's a female I haven't sniffed yet, let me at her' raked his blue gaze over Skinner and turned on that endearing, charming, on-the-prowl smile. His pupils, already affected by the dim lighting, did that black dance again. 

Skinner leaned across the corner of the table, right into Blair's personal space, and said, //You look good enough to eat.// The appreciation and the heat in his voice raked down Jim's spine. 

Blair laughed, husky and delighted, and his face flushed with pleasure, but his gaze flicked towards Jim. Checking to see if he was listening before he answered. //Funny, I was thinking that's what might happen to you, if you unbutton just one more thing.// 

Mulder shifted, bumped Jim's arm as he turned back and caught his gaze in the mirror. Arched an eyebrow with a smug 'I know what you're thinking' grin. Then veered back towards Simon and took up the thread of his story without missing a beat. 

Jim carefully turned his head towards Simon, nodded at whatever Mulder was saying even though he didn't have a clue what it was. He didn't even know what Blair was saying to Skinner. All he could hear was the thudding of his own heart and a hum of staticky conversation like a radio that had slipped off the station. And the electric roar of words in his own head. 

Blair had lied to him. Not with words, but with actions. With his affecting, rabid enthusiasm for women. Blair knew that Jim swung both ways, because while he'd never flaunted it, he'd never tried to hide it. From the rest of the world, but not from Blair. And Blair never seemed to care one way or the other. Blair had gay friends, and straight friends, and bi friends, and probably polka-dotted friends. And he'd never even seen fit to comment on the fact that Jim was sometimes as appreciative of a guy's ass as he was of a woman's. And still knowing all that, Blair had lied to him. 

He'd thought that Blair would never lie to him, not even by omission. But...Blair had never lied to him. Played that game of obfuscation, bullshitted with the best of them. But never lied. There wasn't any point. Blair knew that Jim could tell when someone was lying. Why would he bother? And the answer to that was that he wouldn't. He hadn't. 

He didn't have to, when he had Jim to cloud the truth with his self-centered assumptions. He'd thought Blair was straight, because despite his own inclinations, he still had a heterosexist mindset. Blair hadn't said outright _I suck dick_ , so Blair must be straight. But Blair had never said he didn't sleep with men. Blair had never said anything at all. Blair went out with men and women. And came home smelling of strange soap. And Jim had always assumed when Blair went out drinking with a guy and came home smelling of someone else's shampoo that it was because he had scored with some woman and left his buddy in the dust. 

Some detective he was! He should have put it all together, if not in the time they'd lived together, then when Blair's heart rate went through the roof and his body heated up the squad room and he practically climbed up Skinner's tree trunk of a body. 

Jim snatched up his beer and downed half of it in one long swallow. Okay... Okay... Deep breath. Very deep breath... So he was slow, but he had it all now. Blair swung both ways. And it didn't really matter, did it? He wasn't exactly a straight arrow himself, and now he knew Blair wasn't either. It wasn't any big deal. It just enlarged the number of bars they could hop together. It sort of _swelled_ the pool of asses they could admire together. He grinned at his own double entendre and took a more civilized swallow of beer. And another deep breath. And dragged his attention back to where it belonged. On Simon's inquisition of Mulder. 

It sounded like pretty much the same material Jim had already dug up from his DC sources. Mulder was explaining that he and Scully were assigned to a division called the X-Files, and they reported directly to Skinner, instead of a Section Chief. And that they investigated the more esoteric stuff the Bureau got, the harder-to-explain cases, the paranormal stuff nobody else wanted to touch. 

That explained the _ghosts and goblins_ comment from one of Jim's friends. And brought him back around to Skinner. He was okay with Blair, but he still wasn't okay with Skinner. No matter how well Blair had once known him. Even though it looked like Blair wanted to renew old acquaintances. Jim checked the corner of the mirror. 

Skinner leaned close to Blair, arm draped over the table so that his long fingers were almost brushing Blair's thigh. And said in that steel-draped, velvet voice, //Stay with me tonight.// 

At the other end of the bar, the bartender was trying to pick up a pretty redhead. The bubbles were rising and popping in the champagne he'd given her. In one of the booths, a couple was arguing while they held hands. Simon was laughing at something Mulder had said. And Jim heard Blair's lashes brush his face as he looked down, then up. 

Skinner's voice went as flat as the champagne soon would be, forgotten in its crystal glass. //Can you? I mean...are you and Ellison...?// 

Blair stopped him by gently tapping Skinner's fingers with his own. //No, it's not like that. We're roommates. I'll just have to let him know I won't be home tonight.// 

//A roommate who looks like that. And you have to check in with him. But it's not like that?// Skinner's voice was teasing, but skeptical. 

//Really, it's not.// 

There was a tone to Blair's voice, some quiet note in it, that Jim couldn't place. He wanted to turn around, look at Blair without the flattening distortion of the mirror, but Mulder was looking at him again. "Sorry," Jim apologized. "Did I miss something?" 

"No. I don't think you're missing anything," Mulder answered, and he turned back to Simon. 

It was one of those cryptic things. Plain, ordinary words that seemed to have some meaning hidden in them. Just like Blair's voice as he touched Skinner's ring finger, traced the length of it with a fingertip. //What about you? You're not wearing your wedding ring.// 

Jim and Skinner took a breath in unison. Deep breaths. But Skinner let his out. Jim held onto his. And onto it, because suddenly, illogically, he wanted Skinner married. Attached. Committed. And called home in the next few minutes, so that Jim wouldn't have to be worried about Blair. At the same time, he didn't really want to know that Blair was the kind of person to sleep with a married man. Not that he had much room to feel holy. How many of those nameless, faceless guys he'd spent a couple of hours with had a wedding ring hidden in a pocket? 

//I tried, Blair.// The ring finger twitched and Skinner covered it by making a fist. //Sharon tried. We just couldn't make it work. You know...how it was. All the things I see... I couldn't share it with her and still protect her from it. And some nights, I just couldn't sit at the dinner table and smile and make innocuous conversation.// 

Blair smiled, sweet and sympathetic and regretful. //Yeah, I remember you having a few of those nights.// 

//But you understood. You could deal with it.// 

Blair laughed, still sweet and so intimate. //Not really. It always really bugged me. But...it gave me more time to talk.// 

//Yeah, I could always count on you to fill in.// Skinner tried to muster a smile and failed. //Sharon never filled in. She never understood. It just...hurt her more and more. And after a while, we just didn't talk at all. I fought the divorce for a long time, but I finally signed the papers last year.// 

//I'm sorry,// Blair whispered. //I know how much you wanted things to work out.// He tapped Skinner's hand again, urging him to unfurl his fist. To let go. //I--// 

"Detective Ellison!" 

"Jim!" 

Jim jerked, realizing that both Mulder and Simon were calling him. "What? Sorry. I was...daydreaming." 

"And still not missing anything." Mulder blinked lazily in the mirror, a slow shuttering of his eyes, then turned to look at Jim directly. "Yet." 

The man had really great eyes. Multi-colored and changeable and used to maximum advantage. 

"Our table's ready." Simon stood, motioning to Blair, but Mulder remained where he was. 

Staring at Jim. His scrutiny was unnerving, to the bone. Knowing. Speculative. 

Jim felt he should back away from such intensity, but he never backed away. So he did the next best thing. He attacked. "Agent Mulder, since you're not going to be investigating these murders, and we are, what can you tell us?" Without ever breaking eye contact, he reached into the pocket of his slacks and pulled out Mulder's business card, worked it between his fingers. 

Behind Mulder, Simon choked. For just a moment, Mulder gaped. Gawked at him like he'd grown another head. But he covered his surprise well. He grinned as if impressed. He grabbed his beer and slid off the stool, turning to follow Simon. "Murders? I thought you had them classified as missing persons." Then he turned back, stopping so quickly that Jim ran right into him. He peered into Jim's eyes, still smiling, and said softly, "Where did you get the idea they were murders, Detective Ellison?" 

Next Mulder was going to be winking and nudging him with an elbow. No wonder Skinner was always scowling at the man. He was exasperating, but so charming about it that was difficult to be annoyed. "Jim," he said automatically, grinning back in spite of himself. 

"Jim." Mulder practically purred it. Blinked those long lashes, more slowly this time. Leaned in, just the barest movement. Maybe only a Sentinel would have seen it, the minute slide of muscle beneath amazingly smooth skin. Mulder's breath, scented of heavy, dark beer, teased the hairs on his upper lip. 

Jim _felt_ his body divert blood towards his groin. Not just the tingling of nerves, but the actual movement of blood in the veins. He caught his breath, shivered with an egotistical rush at having such a beautiful man flirt with him. He let his own eyes slide shut and open in imitation of Mulder's lazy, sexy blink. "And it's Fox?" 

Mulder laughed. Silky sound. That deprecating smile again. "Mulder, please. Nobody calls me Fox." 

"Mulder." That would be weird, wouldn't it? Moaning a guy's last name as he was rolling around in his bed. But he had to admit, moaning _Fox_ would be even weirder. 

Mulder grinned even wider, as if he knew what Jim was thinking. A chuckle escaped out of that pretty mouth. Very pretty mouth. Almost as pretty as Blair's. 

Then suddenly, Skinner was practically on top of him. Scowling, again. Did the man ever ease up on those facial muscles? Blair was beside Skinner, arms almost touching, looking up at Jim, brow furrowed. 

"Ready to eat?" Blair said lightly, but in his voice there was that _what's up with you?_ tone that Jim knew so well. He'd be answering questions later on. Or ducking them. 

Except...Blair would be busy later on. Blair would be doing things with a man that Jim had never imagined him doing with a man. A shiver skated down his belly as he wondered what Blair liked, as he imagined them actually getting to the point where they discussed something like that. He knew some of the things Blair liked with women. Every once in a while, over a beer or during a lull in a game, Blair was distressingly, thrillingly, explicitly clear on what he liked. 

Skinner looked like the kind of guy who would pin his partner to the bed, press him down and hold him. That starched demeanor just screamed control freak. Jim couldn't decide whether it aroused him or pissed him off to think of Skinner on top of Blair. But if it pissed him off, why couldn't he shake the image? Why was his cock tingling like somebody was stroking it? Jesus, he needed to get laid. He'd just flipped through fantasies of two different men in less than two minutes. Three, if he counted having Blair talk dirty to him. 

"Some of us are hungry here." 

Once again, Jim jerked back to awareness to find Simon staring at him. This time the bigger man was also standing over him, over them, hands on hips. "Can we go in before we have to choose from the breakfast menu?" 

Blair and Mulder laughed. Jim paused for a parting scowl at Skinner before allowing himself to be pushed out of the bar. Blair stepped up to walk near him as they entered the crowded dining room. "Doing okay?" 

"Yeah, fine, Chief." And he really was fine. More than okay, because Blair had come up beside him and laid a hand on his back again. That starfish of warmth that seeped into his skin almost always worked. It was more than enough to help him remember to dial things down. To filter out what he didn't want to hear, or smell, or feel. To let in what he did want. 

He put a hand on Blair's shoulder, guided him towards the table. And as he always did when they were moving together like that, when they were in sync and in step and his control was working, Blair looked at him and smiled. Whether it was something as huge as getting his hearing back under control after his ears had been cleaned, or something as inconsequential as being able to walk into a crowded room without wincing, it pleased Blair. For almost three years, Jim had been waiting for Blair's enthusiasm for the whole Sentinel thing to wane. It hadn't. 

That was enough to keep him happy throughout the entire meal. Even though Blair made sure that Skinner was sitting on his other side, and the food was a little spicier than he liked. Mulder burbled on about all kinds of cases, urged on by Skinner's wry comments, but resisted being drawn back to theirs with a smirk that said he knew exactly what they were up to and he was too smart to fall for it. Jim's euphoria even lasted through Simon insisting that he just _had_ to have a cigar and brandy after the meal and dragging them back to the bar. 

It couldn't tide him over hearing Blair and Skinner making plans to slip back to his hotel room. He was okay with Blair, with knowing, with...everything. But he just couldn't shake the urge to pack Blair up and take him home. He couldn't shake that bristling, big dog reaction to having somebody he didn't trust so close to his friend. And, so, when Skinner excused himself to go to the restroom, Jim slid himself and his beer over next to Blair. "Hey, Chief..." 

Blair, who had been enthralled by some fishing story Simon was telling Mulder, slid over closer to him. "Jim, you doing okay? The smoke's not too much for you?" 

"Nah, I'm fine." He found himself extremely interested in whether or not the label would peel off his beer bottle, suddenly at a loss for words. Blushing as he realized he was about to verbally acknowledge Blair's interest in men. Reluctant to voice his concerns over Skinner because he knew that if he was right, it was going to hurt Blair. "You riding home with me?" 

He knew it wasn't fair. It wasn't what he'd intended to say, and it put all the burden on Blair for exposing his plans, but it was the best he could do. 

Hot spots bloomed on Blair's cheekbones. "Well, actually, I was... That is, we were talking about checking out a couple of other places. Catching up on the last couple of years, you know?" 

Nicely fielded. Into the obfuscation zone again. And Jim understood how he'd gone so long and never realized that Blair swung both ways. He wondered if he'd shielded his preferences from Blair as well, without meaning to. Maybe Blair didn't know about him either. 

"Why? Do you need me for something?" 

"Nah. I just figured-" He took a deep breath. Time to drop the bullshit. "I figured you were planning on staying with Skinner tonight." 

Blair's eyes widened. A muscle under his left eye twitched. "You figured?" 

"I heard him ask you," Jim admitted. 

Instead of getting irritated, the tension actually drained out of Blair. "Man, you have _got_ to stop eavesdropping on me. You're starting to piss me off, okay?" But he smiled. That lovely, room-lightening Blair-smile that was so far from pissed off. 

Jim couldn't help but feel lighter, too, and he smiled back. "You work me like a dog, teaching me to control my senses, then you're pissed when I use them?" 

Blair punched him on the shoulder and snorted. "Good one, Jim. But you don't get off that easy. I know you're mad about the thing with the cases, but Walter has obligations to his job, just like you do to yours. If there's stuff he can't tell you, then there's a good reason. Lighten up on him, okay?" 

Jim sobered. "I'm just concerned about you. I know you think you know this guy..." 

"As well as I know you." Blair looked him square in the eyes, met his gaze without flinching. "And I trust him as much as I trust you." 

"People change, Chief." 

"So you're saying I won't always be able to trust you?" 

Jim sighed. There wasn't any comeback to that. Well, fine, Blair trusted Skinner. But Jim didn't. And he couldn't warn Blair away with innuendo and gossip. He just didn't have anything to go on but one of Simon's twitchy feelings. 

A few minutes later, he kept his mouth shut and his fists jammed into his pockets as he stood on the sidewalk and watched Blair and Skinner split away, saying they were going to check a bar a couple of blocks over. Even though he knew, because he'd eavesdropped again, that Skinner was going back to his room and Blair was to follow him up after a few minutes. They had made the arrangement in that intimate shorthand speech that made it seem secret assignations were an exciting everyday occurrence for them. It made Jim want to grind his teeth. 

Mulder sidled up beside him, waiting until Simon said his good-byes and walked away, before speaking. "I'm in Room 314." He had his hands shoved into his pockets, too, but probably because the air had turned cold since sundown. 

The words, white and frosty and scented of rich, red wine, were so neutral in tone that Jim couldn't tell they were an invitation to talk about the case or a low key pick-up line. It was so much a contrast to the easy understanding between Blair and Skinner that it annoyed him. "Yeah?" 

"Yeah." Mulder ambled off down the sidewalk, turned and took a couple of crab-like sideways steps, showing off a handsome profile and a very enticing bulge in his jeans. "I'm more used to Happy Hour Motel rooms. But this one's great. Lace curtains. Big bed. Right next door to Skinner's." And then he walked away, showing off a nicely filled-out seat in his jeans. 

Jim stood on the sidewalk, watching his breath make patterns in the air, until the cold began to seep up through the soles of his shoes. He watched his own internal monologue with detachment, like sitting on the sidelines of a boring tennis match, watching the balls go back and forth. Watching his words go back and forth. 

Blair would really be pissed if he went so far as to check up on him. But he couldn't shake the squirrelly feeling that Skinner gave him. As long as he was standing out there, alone, just outside of the ring of cold, greenish streetlight, he could admit that part of it was that he was attracted to Skinner himself. And as long as he was admitting attraction, Mulder wasn't chopped liver himself. Jim didn't usually go for that pretty boy, runway model look. He liked bigger, stronger guys...like Skinner. A guy who could take his weight without wincing. But he'd liked the way Mulder felt, standing toe to toe with him in the bar. And his dick was pretty damn well interested in what Mulder was packing in those jeans. The ball landed out of bounds, though, when he reminded himself that Mulder was a colleague, of sorts. And a Suit. They might still wind up butting heads over this case. 

Game. Set. Match. Time to go home. Alone. 

But what if Mulder hadn't been coming on to him? What if Mulder was trying to warn him about something? It wouldn't hurt just to make sure everything sounded okay. Not eavesdrop exactly, but just... reconnoiter, before he headed home. So he ducked into the Westin and made his way up to the third floor. Room 314 was near the end of one hall, and Mulder was already in the shower, humming a little off-key, making a foamy mess with the soap. 

Just a few feet down, and across the hall, was the alcove housing snack and drink and ice machines. Jim slipped into it to get his bearings. The room to the left of Mulder's was empty, but the one to the right, nearer the elevator, was Skinner's. He was moving around inside, handling paper and glass. Cleaning his glasses, maybe, or tearing the paper off a hotel glass. 

A minute later, he heard Blair coming up in the elevator. 

Jim stepped back, into the shadow of the ice machine. The flocked wallpaper caught at the threads of his shirt. Even above the grind of the elevator and the hum of the drink machine, the shifting of melting ice, he could hear the quick catch in Blair's breathing. His hurried footsteps on the thick carpet. He tapped lightly on Skinner's door, and Jim dared to peek around the corner. 

Skinner opened the door. Barefoot, shirt untucked and unbuttoned. The hall light glinted on his thick, dark chest hair and the wire-rimmed glasses, cast soft shadows across the rippling muscles. 

Blair said simply, "Wow." 

"Get in here," Skinner growled. He caught the sleeve of Blair's shirt between forefinger and thumb and tugged. 

Blair slipped inside, and the lock snicked, and then there was silence. Too much silence. 

Jim closed his eyes and imagined the two of them, standing just inside the door, not touching, just staring at each other. Standing so close they were leeching each other's heat. Breathing each other's breath. Just...wanting each other. Drawing out the tension of finally being alone together, after so many years. 

The lack of movement drew out _his_ tension until he felt strung tight. Stretched to the point of breaking. Stretched to the point of feeling ridiculous and unworthy. A total ass for spying on his best friend, for feeding off his passion like some scaly parasite sucking up blood and warmth. 

He took a deep, deep breath, and adjusted himself in his pants. He was so hard he could feel his pulse against his zipper. He knew it was time to leave. But he wanted to linger there, listening to them, breathing with them, until they moved. Touched. He wanted-- 

He stepped out into the hall, intent on getting away as quickly as possible, and a door opened. The door to the room next to Skinner's. Mulder's room. Before Jim could step back out of sight, Mulder stuck his head out and looked straight at him. As if he knew Jim was there. 

Jim froze, that old deer-caught-in-the-headlights thing, and had the grace to shrug ruefully and stand his ground when Mulder grinned and raked him with his knowing gaze. He'd just been caught skulking. There was little point in adding insult to injury by slinking away. Especially when Mulder motioned him inside. 

Without thinking, without giving himself time to think, Jim stepped into the room. Mulder closed the door behind him and the lock snicked into place, just like the other had behind Blair. The room was in darkness except for one tiny bit of light. 

He glanced around quickly, orienting himself, noting that Mulder was right. It was a nice room. Large and airy, muted, soothing colors, high ceiling, cushiony carpet. Lace curtains over the large window, just like Mulder had said. A king-sized bed covered with a quilted, satin comforter. And in the front corner, a connecting door between Mulder's and Skinner's rooms. Opened so slightly that only a paper-thin sliver of light shone through. 

Mulder leaned into him, his scent overlaid with toothpaste and soap now. "You like to watch?" 

The whisper was as intoxicating as those calling to him from the next room. As exhilarating as that sliver of light, the soft sighs escaping in it. That glimmer drew Jim like a fly to honey, moth to flame. The light called to him. The whispers... Blair... Blair's voice called to him. A siren's song even stronger than the light. 

Mulder's hand, hot and dry, slipped down to his wrist. Drew him towards the door. Mulder was barefoot, too. Dressed in thin cotton sweatpants and a well used, ragged t-shirt. His hair was standing up in spikes across his forehead, still damp from the shower. 

Jim didn't even have to get close to the light to see through. To his eyes, that tiny sliver was like a wide open door. A window through which he felt something he'd never expected to feel. Desire. Heavy and wriggling and thick as syrup. Scaled with sharp edges. 

He could see part of the dresser and large mirror, most of the king-sized bed, already stripped of its heavy comforter. And his partner in Walter Skinner's arms, kissing him. He'd never seen Blair kiss a woman the way he was kissing Skinner. 

Blair's big, square hands were molded to Skinner's naked skull, holding his head in place while his mouth _invaded_ Skinner's. Tasting him and biting him and inhaling him. Blair was stretched up, not quite on tiptoes, plastered to Skinner, body moving against his, melted against his. Skinner's two-handed grip on his ass held him in place. And that didn't seem right. It didn't seem right that anyone could kiss Blair Sandburg and not want to have his hands buried in that glorious hair. 

Jim grabbed for something, anything, to keep him from pitching forward with the weight of his erection. The front of his body was so heavy, weighted down with blood and lust... He clutched at the door frame, the corner of wood smooth beneath his fingers. Mulder pushed up under his arm, just past him, a rake of shower-cooled body along his armpit and his ribs. That same coolness filled the space between Jim and the door, a pocket of cold air with Mulder at its center, not quite insulating him from the heat in the other room. 

Mulder pressed his face to the opening. His intake of breath was almost silent, would have been unheard by any but Sentinel ears, but arousal poured off of him like it was leaking from his pores. "Oh, my god." 

In the other room, Skinner pulled back, touched Blair's face with gentle fingertips. Rasp of fingers on beard, on the soft skin of Blair's throat, the soft cotton of his shirt. Skinner pushed the cloth off his shoulders, continued down his chest, ruffling the thick hair. "I didn't think you could get any more beautiful than you were back then. But you've...changed. You've grown up." He rested his fingertips in the groove of muscle along the backs of Blair's arms. "You're so strong." 

Blair laughed, deep in his throat, delighted. Aroused. Heating the room so that his scent, that dry silk musk, washed through the crack of the door and mingled with Mulder's soapy coolness. Blair attacked Skinner's shirt with feverish intensity, and the moment it came off, mirrored Skinner's slow fingertip perusal of his body. He laid his open palms on Skinner's chest. "You haven't changed a bit. And I still like all these muscles." He drew his fingernails down Skinner's arms, back up his rippled belly. 

Jim's stomach muscles quivered in sympathy, in envy. Along with him, Skinner shivered, laid his thumbs on Blair's nipples and scratched. Jim's nipples tightened, and he stifled a moan while Blair let his go, voicing his pleasure without reservation. 

Mulder stepped back slightly, fitting his ass in the curve of Jim's hips. He stayed there, and Jim had to stifle another groan. Sound, sight, smell, and now touch. All he needed was taste. And all he had to do to get that was lean forward. Fasten his teeth onto the soft flesh beneath Mulder's ear. Suck until sweat and salt and blood filled his mouth. 

But it wouldn't be the taste of Blair. And it shocked him to his core, to the place where his bones and nerves knotted, that it wasn't Mulder he wanted to taste. It wasn't Skinner. It was Blair. His partner. His best friend. Blair, who was making love to another man... 

Blair unhooked the button on his own jeans with just two fingers, tongue caught between his teeth. He put one palm flat on Skinner's chest and shoved, and the bigger man let himself be pushed, gaze glued to the blue eyes staring up at him. One step, two, turn, and back onto the bed. Skinner reached up at the last minute, tried to drag Blair with him, but Blair resisted, staying upright long enough to shed jeans, socks, shoes, all in one piece, no longer moving with sultry slowness. Hurrying to get undressed. Then he climbed up onto the bed, onto Skinner, astride him. Naked except for the leather necklace threaded with tribal beads. Every bit as beautiful as Skinner had said he was. 

Jim groaned out loud then. Not caring if anyone heard. Because maybe if Blair heard, he'd open the door, and Jim could lie down on the bed and Blair would crawl up over him. It was Blair he wanted. It was Blair's scent he was filtering out of all the others. Blair's voice that was clinging to his skin like warm, wet satin. 

Skinner laid his hands on bare thighs, stroked up along Blair's belly and his ribs. Blair leaned forward into the caress, trusting Skinner to hold him up while he removed the other man's glasses. Then he leaned back, arching, stretching to set the glasses on the nightstand. Skinner stroked him, his ribs and his thighs and the soft, curling hair on his belly. He grazed his fingertips along the underside of Blair's cock. Blair braced his hands on Skinner's thighs and stayed where he was, his back bowed in a lovely arch, his thick, straight cock impudently up-thrust into the air. He reached back behind his neck to untie the knot of leather at his nape, and Skinner said roughly, "Leave it on. I like it. Makes you look more naked." 

Jim squeezed down on the door frame, cold wood under his palm, when what he wanted was the soft-over-hard texture of Blair's cock, the weight of Blair's thighs. He knew the way Skinner's cock must feel, straining against his zipper to get at Blair's ass. But all he could feel were his nails digging into the paint. 

Blair rolled forward, unfastened Skinner's trousers, kissed his way down the expanse of heaving chest before him. And finally, finally, Skinner touched his hair. Gathered it up and let it spill back down onto his torso, fanning it out so that the tendrils played across his skin. The curls caught and dragged on the hair on Skinner's chest. Tremors rippled across his muscles. 

Skinner jerked as his cock leapt free and was recaptured, this time by a hungry mouth. Mulder jerked as Skinner did, almost butting Jim in the face, but he barely noticed it. Barely felt the movement near his jaw. Barely heard Skinner moan, "God, Blair, you're just too damn good at that." 

Numbness tingled, teased at the edges of Jim's awareness. Rippling as it tightened down. Smell and touch and sound, all being sucked up as blackness slowly moved in on him. The desire to taste slipped away before he'd even had the chance to indulge it. All he had left was sight. The sight of Blair... 

Naked. Not naked like he'd seen him before, just stepping out of the shower, or shedding his work clothes for sweats. Erect and purring with arousal. Little silver beads flashing amongst the glass ones at his throat. Sweating and licking and humming. His wet, pink tongue inscribing circles and patterns on a big, pulsing cock. Back arched and legs spread so that Jim could see his cock and the swirling pattern of glossy hair behind his balls. 

Blair pushed Skinner until he was all the way up on the bed, and his legs were spread wide. Knees coming up. Letting Blair see him the way Jim was seeing Blair, and the sight of Skinner like that, open and vulnerable and giving another man control over him, made Jim tremble with want and fear. He couldn't really even focus on the man. Everything but sight was fading. Going fuzzy and dull. He was zoning. Zoning on Blair, but without Blair there to drag him back. Without the steady security of Blair there to help him open his other senses back up. 

Skinner grabbed handfuls of Blair's hair, dragged him back up his body. Twisted and rolled Blair onto his back. Blair hooked his foot in Skinner's trousers and yanked them the rest of the way down, around his ankles. Blair arched up, groaning, welcoming the weight of the bigger body, and Jim reached past Mulder and pulled the door closed. 

His fingers were so numb he couldn't feel the doorknob beneath his fingers, or hear the snick as the door caught. He only knew he'd succeeded because the light went away, because he went blind. For a moment, he was cocooned in nothing. He couldn't feel the clothes on his skin, or the air on his face, or smell the man who must surely be standing only inches from him. He couldn't hear, not even the roaring of his own blood. He was sure he must still be hard, throbbing, but his balls were numb. 

A panicked scream coiled in his belly. No sound, just a fluttering, bashing wildness, and he noted dispassionately, _So that's what a scream feels like_. Building. Swelling. Battering its way up his chest and into his throat. Catalogued by some internal sense that he couldn't name. How long had he been there? Surely Mulder wouldn't go off and leave him there, wrapped in nothingness. 

Then everything, sight and sound and smell and truth, slammed back into him at once. All of it roaring back because of a breathy whisper that cut through the fog. Blair's voice. A throaty, panted whisper. //Suck me. Oh, yeah, just like that.// 

Mulder was there, right in front of him, fingers digging into his arm. Voice annoyed. "Why in hell did you do that?" They were in the dark, but his eyes were compensating. Senses dialing up so he could see Mulder, feel him heating up. His cock smelled hard as that scrubbed clean shower scent evaporated off his skin. 

And he could hear again. Really hear. His own breath, roaring in and out of his lungs. Blair. Moaning. His body moving on the bed and his voice, raspy with pleasure and laughter. //God, Walter, you're just too damn good at that.// 

Jim's body flared back to life, trembling and sweaty and prickling like something electric was crawling on him. Mulder's hot fingerprints through his shirtsleeve. The rough wallpaper against his shoulders. His cock, trapped hard against the seam of his jeans. Rubbing against the threads of his boxers. Demanding to be set free. To be touched. Demanding... Blair. His mouth and his clinging hair and his musky perfume. 

Jim let his legs fold out from under him. Slid down the wall until his ass connected with the floor. He sat there, slumped. The only muscle in his body that hadn't melted was between his legs. That one was taking up the slack with a vengeance. He wanted to come so badly it took all his concentration to keep from rubbing himself off right there, to keep from just letting go and coming in his shorts. 

Mulder's hand stayed with him until he was sitting, then slipped away. Fumbling through the darkness, Mulder found a small lamp on the bedside table and turned it on. 

Jim closed his eyes against the flare of light, and by the time he'd dialed it down, Mulder was back, kneeling before him. Smiling that voracious, knowing smile. Staring into him. "You didn't know, did you?" 

Jim swiped his arm across his forehead, his lip, wiping away a fine sheen of sweat. The damned turtleneck shirt was choking him, pressing on his throat, and he stretched it away from his neck. "Know what?" 

Mulder leaned forward, so close that fine strands of his hair tickled Jim's jaw. And he blew a soft stream of air down Jim's collar. Mulder's breath was warm, but still cooler than the sweaty, humid air trapped inside his shirt. It swirled around his exposed neck, circled his adam's apple, swirling like a vortex. 

Jim jerked. His cock throbbed, pulsed; one quick burst that was so close to orgasm, he groaned. Prickles of pleasure stabbed along his spine, squeezed his balls. 

"You didn't know that you wanted him." 

The words made different patterns than the deliberate breaths, not swirling as much. They turned lazily across his throat and climbed up under his ear. Annoyance flitted through the shivers coursing over his skin, slowed the throb of pleasure threatening to undo him. Two could play that exposing-a-nerve crap. "Did you know that you wanted Skinner?" he snapped. 

"Since the first time I saw him." Mulder drew back, blushing. 

Blushing! Like a schoolboy. They had just stood in a doorway and spied on his boss. Mulder's heartbeat had chewed like a jackhammer. And like a wanton alley cat, he'd rubbed his ass against Jim's dick. And right now, he was kneeling with his knees spread wide, every curve and pulse of his erection visible through the thin cotton sweatpants. Yet he was blushing like a schoolboy. It was either the most charming or the most annoying thing Jim had ever seen. He didn't know whether to kiss Mulder or punch him. 

"They sent him in to clean me up, to straighten me out. Assigned me to him although no other department has to report directly to an AD. I was so pissed off, so cocky. I was planning to chew him up and spit out the remains. I thought I was so smart, I would just... _handle_ him. And he stood up from behind his desk, and it was like he swallowed up the whole room. I was so hard I couldn't even stand up. I would have stripped and crawled across the floor naked if he'd asked me to. I would have gone down on my knees and done anything he wanted. But he's never asked. Until I saw him with your partner yesterday, I didn't even think there was a possibility." 

The man was a walking, talking, breathing contradiction. Jim shook his head. He was sitting in a stranger's hotel room, angry and jealous, arousal boiling as hot as iron in a furnace. So hard he hurt. Wanting to be where Skinner was so badly he hurt. And all the blushing, smiling Mulder saw was a possibility. What might be. He was an endearing, annoying, sexy contradiction. 

Very sexy. Kneeling there, palms on his legs, thighs spread wide. Making no effort to hide himself. Scenting the air with his arousal. 

Jim's nostrils flared as he breathed it in. Sweat and salt and precome and lube. Lube and quickened breaths and a huskily whispered, //You want to go first?// 

He was so abruptly yanked back into the room with Blair and Skinner, he didn't even have time to cover it. No time to hide as he arched and the back of his head thumped the wall and his cock jumped and his mind supplied images to match the sounds. 

Blair moaned as he was penetrated. Writhed and bucked back, slick sound of skin sliding on skin, and gasped, //Do it with two fingers. Now! God, I want more now!// 

Skinner grumbled, //Don't be so bossy,// but there was laughter in his voice. 

//I'll show you bossy.// Blair twisted and pounced. 

The mattress and Skinner's lungs protested. Dry skin sliding on skin as they struggled against each other. Breath huffing out and groans huffing out. Then that strong scent of lube again and slick skin on skin and stillness as Skinner hissed, //Easy! God...// 

Blair murmured to him, soothing him and kissing him. //You're so tight. Did I hurt you?// 

//No. No. Just...slower. It's been a while.// 

Jim couldn't stop the moan that seeped out. The soft, "God..." It was weird, disconcerting, to be blind to the other room, and yet to be seeing all of it. Playing out in slow motion on the backs of his eyelids. To have his mind piggybacking on the sounds and smells and supplying images. It was maddening. Arousing. Jim blinked. Blinked again. 

Mulder was right in his face. So close he was breathing the stream of Jim's air. His eyes glittered like his brain was on fire behind them. "You can hear them, can't you?" 

Jim jerked. Opened his mouth to deny. Denial was easy. Nobody would ever believe anyway, even if he told them. Nobody would believe. 

Skinner whispered, //Let me...// 

And Blair shifted. Shifted again. Moaned. //Oh, god, yes. Two. Fuck me. Fuck me!// 

Jim shuddered. His muscles contracted as if it was he who was being penetrated and stretched. 

Nobody would believe. Except Mulder. Bright, quirky, eerie Mulder. Bits and pieces of the things Mulder had been telling Simon floated into his consciousness, the rumors his friend in DC had heard. Mulder chased UFOs and monsters who lived in the sewer and serial killers who had lived for hundreds of years. Mulder would believe. Mulder _wanted_ to believe. 

Mulder shifted back from him, giving him room to breathe. Resting his butt on his heels. Knees still spread wide, like what he was carrying between his legs was demanding space to grow. He moved his long, elegant fingers, slowly, so slowly, across the bulge in his gray sweatpants and stroked himself in time to his words, as if the idea turned him on as much as the touch. "You can hear them," he said breathlessly, with utter conviction. "I know it. I saw it. In the bar, you were listening to what they were saying. And at the station. You heard me tell Skinner about the murders. From across the room. And now you're listening to them." Mulder scrabbled at his waist, lifting the edge of his ragged t-shirt, shoved his hand down into his pants. Stroking bare flesh. He gasped. 

And Blair gasped. Whispered, //Suck me. Oh, yeah, harder. Want three fingers now.// 

Background music to the wet, velvet slide of Mulder's palm across his own cock. Mulder shoved his pants down, past his hips, to mid-thigh, exposing a cock that matched his long, elegant fingers, set in dark hair so soft, so fine it had no curl. 

A rush of heated, Mulder-scented air washed around Jim's face, stronger than the scents from the other room. Wrapping him in sex-scent. In steamy skin-scent. Wrapping him in Mulder as Mulder leaned forward and licked along the line of his jaw. Rasp of tongue across his beard. Another shot of hot breath along his neck. Mulder sucking at his neck. 

Rasp of Blair's voice, heavy with passion. //I'm ready. I want you so much.// 

Jim moaned and let his head drop back, exposing his throat. He let his knees drop, giving Mulder his body. Those strong, hot hands covered his cock and squeezed. Teeth grazed his adam's apple. 

"Tell me," Mulder whispered against his jugular. "Tell me what they're doing." 

Jim gasped. His conscience tried to muffle the thought and failed. It zinged straight into his cock. He pushed up into Mulder's hand, hard. 

Mulder bit down on his earlobe. He yanked Jim's jeans open and wrapped a hand around his erection. "Yeah, you like that. It turns you on, doesn't it?" Mulder shoved the other hand up under his shirt and pinched Jim's nipple. 

//Come on, fuck me. If you can,// Blair taunted. He slithered along the bed, laughing darkly. 

Skinner growled with wordless frustration and dragged him back. Tried to hold him to stillness while Blair wriggled and struggled against him, moaning and groaning and laughing. Pausing to gasp out in pleasure, then wriggling across the sheets again. He grappled with the bigger man, and his laughter, his hoarse, delighted laughter, never stopped. //You bastard. Just wait until-- oh, god, your mouth is so hot.//" More gasps and lube being squirted onto skin. Flesh sliding on wet flesh. "Just wait until I get you on your knees...oh, god..." 

Skinner growled again, words Jim could understand this time, even though they were muffled around a mouthful of flesh. //That's what I'm counting on.// 

Jim shivered. "Skinner's sucking him," he gasped, thrusting up into the tight fist. _And finger fucking him_. But he couldn't quite bring himself to say that. To tell Mulder that, and he didn't know why. Didn't know why one sex act seemed a thrill to speak out loud, while one was... Was... What he wanted so badly he was afraid to say it. Blair inside of him. Blair...making him ready with his fingers... Stretching him... 

Mulder grabbed his shoulders. Yanked with such strength and intent that Jim pitched forward onto him. His erection caught on Mulder's, scrubbed back and forth in the silky pubic hair. 

They wrestled across the floor, shedding clothing. Thrusting against each other. Mulder smelled like soap and sweat and tasted of salt and sunflower seeds. And he moaned the way Blair was moaning. He wriggled out from under Jim and pushed Jim's head toward his belly. "Suck me. Suck me the way Skinner's sucking him." 

The tip of Mulder's cock slid across his mouth, leaving a line of slick, salty precome. It woke him to the smell of Blair's, of Skinner's, of his own. He licked at the tip, let the length slide along the roof of his mouth. 

Mulder hissed and thrust up. He arched again when Jim slid a slickened finger back past his balls, searching. Raised up on his elbows and pierced Jim with his gaze. "Is that what they're doing?" He pulled his knees back and out, opening himself to Jim. Rolling his head from side to side, his muscles twitched like he was being shocked. "Do it. Do it. Whatever Skinner's doing to him." 

Jim let the cock pop out of his mouth and stared across the naked, heaving torso into eyes gone green with desire. 

//Turn over,// Skinner breathed. //Turn over, baby. Let me fuck you.// The bed creaked, and hands moved over skin. Hoarse words, breathed over skin. //God, you are so beautiful.// A foil packet crinkled. Ripped. And Blair rocked against rumpled sheets. 

Jim licked his lips, mouth tingling with the salty sweet taste of cock, frozen by a strange inertia. He wanted to do it. Wanted Mulder. Wanted Blair. Wanted to test Skinner's heavy muscles against his own. To feel the weight and strength of the other man pressing him down, the thickness pressing into him. But this... 

"Whatever he's doing to Blair... I want you. I want them." Mulder fell back, releasing his gaze. Lay there, quivering, waiting for Jim to make the decision. 

After a moment, he nudged his finger up against Mulder, stroked the tight swirl of his asshole. Mulder sighed, rocked with the movement. Pushed against him, and his finger slid in, clenched and swallowed by strong, hungry muscles. Mulder muttered a strange, strangled sound of approval, arched his back and rocked. The same way Blair was rocking back on Skinner's cock. Burbling his approval and tossing his head so that his hair whipped across his shoulders. 

Skinner buried his face in the thick curls, muffled his whispers. //Okay? Are you okay?// At Blair's murmured assent, he pushed forward until flesh slapped on flesh. 

"Get on the bed," Jim rasped. "Let me fuck you." 

Mulder's head snapped up, a question in his eyes, and Jim nodded. 

Mulder flipped over and pushed up. For a moment, he stayed there, knees braced wide on the rough carpet, grinning back over his shoulder at Jim. Then he crawled the couple of steps to the edge of the bed, crawled up over the edge. Hips swaying sexily, beckoning with that lush mouth and his animal eyes and his pale, flawless ass. He kept crawling, aiming across the bed for the leather kit on the nightstand. 

Blair and Skinner rocked in slow rhythm. Jim could hear their knees moving on the bed, the sheet shifting against the mattress. The slow, slick slide of cock. The light contact of thigh against ass. Could smell latex and lube and sweat. 

//I've missed this,// Skinner murmured. "I've missed you.// 

Jim followed Mulder up onto the bed, growling as he pinned the lithe body beneath him. 

Mulder snagged his overnight bag and held on Jim dragged him back into the center of the bed and up onto his knees. He fumbled in the kit, finally upending it and spilling the contents across the bed. Soap and shampoo and toothpaste. Hairbrush and toothbrush and dental floss. Little square foil packets. And a huge bottle of lube. He shoved the packets and bottle towards Jim, the rest of the stuff over the edge of the bed. It thumped and pattered onto the floor, rolling on the carpet as Jim fumbled with the lube, then with Mulder. 

He pushed back onto Jim's slicked fingers, groaning loudly. "I'm ready. Come on, I'm ready." Mulder took him much more easily than Blair had taken Skinner. He opened up and rocked back, urging Jim to hurry. To fuck him the way Skinner was fucking Blair. When Jim slid into him, groaning at the warmth, the tightness, Mulder hissed, "Make me come. Make me come when Skinner makes him come." 

Jim tried to hold back, to go slow, but the sounds, the words, the tandem pulse of Mulder's ass and his cock was too intense. He lunged into Mulder, harder and faster than Skinner was taking Blair. Mulder keened his delight, and the contact of their bodies echoed through the room. Pleasure bloomed, sparkled, wild and hot, until it was a bright, burning thing threatening to swallow him up. Burn him out. 

//Oh, shit, don't stop!// 

The cessation of sound from the other room slowed him. Damped the fire. He hesitated in midstroke, thighs trembling with the strain. Body dancing on the edge of orgasm. 

//Don't stop. I'm so close.// Skinner silenced Blair's protests with a kiss so ferocious it stopped Blair's breathing. So passionate it only ended when they had to break apart, gasping for air. 

//My turn,// Skinner whispered into Blair's mouth. //I want to come with you in me.// 

Jim held his breath as Blair sucked his in. A thrill shot through him as his imagination painted the picture. Blair over him, pushing into him. Stretching him. Filling him. Into him. Blair inside of him. 

Blair's breath started up again, ragged and strained. //No fair,// he whispered back. //That's why you went first. You tricked me.// 

Skinner laughed, low and sinister. //Age,// he said. //Age and experience always win out over youth and enthusiasm.// Foil ripped and Blair whimpered as the condom was rolled down onto him, and Skinner's was snapped off. 

"Don't stop," Mulder moaned. 

But Jim couldn't move. He could barely breathe, as he listened to Blair push Skinner around, shove him down onto the bed. He couldn't believe Skinner was allowing it. Going down on his stomach and spreading his legs wide. He didn't seem the type. Didn't seem like he could give up control that easily. But he was. He had his fists twisted into the sheets so tightly Jim could hear the threads popping. His knees dug into the mattress. His face was muffled in the crook of his arm as he begged, //Please, baby, do it. Don't tease me. Just take me.// 

"Did they stop?" Mulder rolled his hips in a wide circle. Bucked back insistently. "Shit, I don't care. Don't _you_ stop." 

Jim cared. But he didn't want to stop. Didn't want to chance losing the images playing out inside his head. Didn't want to give up the hot vise of Mulder's body. Pleasure blinked along his nerves like lights on a string. 

Skinner moaned loudly, voluptuously. Mixed pain and pleasure. 

Blair's fingers dug into his skin. Held him still as he leaned down and they murmured to each other. //God, Walter, you're so tight.// 

//Been a long time,// Skinner grunted. //Just don't stop. I want it. All of it. All of you.// 

Jim grabbed for the lube again. Held the bottle in one hand and squeezed, forcing the thick liquid onto his fingers. Reached back and stroked himself. Letting Mulder's demanding rhythm carry his rough fingertips through the crease of his own ass. Across his hole again and again. 

Until Skinner cried out in surrender and triumph. And then he shoved his own fingers into his body. Took himself the way Blair was taking Skinner. The pleasure was sharper than the pain, rounder. It rolled like a wave, across his hips, up his back, snuffing out the individual pinpricks of sensation, replacing them with a huge, enveloping throb. 

Mulder jerked beneath him as he lunged forward. Rode back with him as he rocked back onto his own fingers. "Yeah, that's it. Do it just like that. Again. Again. Is this what they're doing? Hard like this? Do it again!" 

Pleasure and guilt rushed him, for what he wanted and what he couldn't have and what he couldn't give. For wanting one man while he used, enjoyed, another. He tried to shut out the sounds from the other room. Concentrated on the man beneath him, on thrusting lazily in and out of him and stroking the lean, muscled back. On taking his time and making him moan. He rested his palm in the small of Mulder's back and felt his spine moving. Writhing. Despite the strain on his thighs, he leaned down to stroke Mulder's long cock. But not even that could shut Blair out. 

//Faster,// Skinner demanded. //Harder. I'm close. I can take it.// 

Blair laughed knowingly. //I know you can.// He held the bigger man still and moved against him so slowly, with such power, that the bed protested. //You like this best, don't you? You always did. You on your knees with your face in the mattress and your ass in the air. Begging me to fuck you. You think I don't know it makes you hard just to think about me taking you like this?// Every word was punctuated with a thrust. A withdrawal. With a swipe of tongue across sweaty flesh. With an increasing pace. And Skinner groaning his agreement with every thrust. His pleasure. 

Skinner buried his face in the handful of sheet to muffle the sounds, but Jim moaned for him. Let the rhythm of the two other bodies guide his. Let his senses take in all they could. Glutted himself on sound and scent and touch until he could no longer tell who was touching whom. Who was in whose bed. Until his own fingers in his ass became Blair, plunging in and out of him. Until it was Skinner underneath him, shoving greedily back onto his cock. Until Mulder's cries were his own. And their pleasure was his. Their nerves firing under his skin. And through it all, Blair's voice. Fucking him. Taking him. Pushing him to orgasm. 

He went down on both hands, giving the delicious fullness in his ass, gaining the heat of Mulder's back against his belly. But he could move. Hard and fast, the way Blair was. 

Skinner came first with a guttural cry of release that was nothing like what Jim would have thought the man would utter. Followed it with a roar of pleasure that was everything he'd thought would come from that velvet voice. Somebody's hand was stroking Skinner's cock. Semen pulsed out over it, and he thought it was his, but then the cock in his fist jumped, and it was Mulder's, not Skinner's. The pulse of Mulder's cock, the scent of Mulder's come, the song of his pleasure and the tight clench, release, clench of Mulder's ass dragged him over the edge. 

He tried to clamp down on his muscles, will his orgasm back. He wanted to come with Blair. But he couldn't wait. The spark of it fired, low in his belly, liquid ecstasy. Built, swelled, like a wave rolling in. Rising up and cresting, and he caught it. Surfed it. Let the wash of pleasure take him, let it break over him and turn him upside down. Then Blair's voice joined his, rough and sweet and strong. Mulder and Skinner groaned in unison, in appreciation. 

Jim slumped down over Mulder, letting the smaller man take his weight, holding him up as he tried to gasp air back into his overworked lungs. Finally, laughing and gasping himself, Mulder just collapsed to the bed, taking the dead weight on his back down with him. Jim's softened cock slipped free, and Mulder's expressive voice keened his disappointment. Then he twitched, pushing up on one side and rolling Jim off him. 

Jim slid away quickly, thinking he'd hurt him by collapsing on him, boneless and weak. 

Mulder made a disgusted sound and swiped at his stomach. "Fell in the wet spot." 

Jim sat up slowly, gaze caught by the man who sprawled further over into the space he'd just vacated. He'd thought Mulder in a business suit was sultry, and Mulder with his eyes glowing green with lust was intoxicating, and Mulder, naked, on his hands and knees, was irresistible. None of those compared to Mulder, sated and boneless and vulnerable, grinning up at him as he swiped at the glistening semen on his belly. 

He ran his thumb softly over Mulder's full bottom lip. "I'll get a towel," he said gruffly. 

"Okay." Mulder rolled completely over onto his back and let his arms flop down. Lazy. Content to lie there and let Jim clean him up. He had one of those cocks that didn't retract much when it was soft. It lay, long and enticing, against his thigh. Sticky and shiny with semen. 

Jim couldn't resist stroking it, testing the spongy softness, remembering the salty, hot taste of Mulder in his mouth. 

Mulder hummed his approval and spread his legs a little wider. "That was great." 

Suddenly, he couldn't look at Mulder. Couldn't meet the smiling gaze. The enormity of what he'd done slammed into him. He'd just had sex with a colleague while eavesdropping on his best friend. While wanting his best friend. He pulled away and went into the bathroom. He disposed of the used condom and washed away the evidence of his transgression, avoiding his own reflection in the mirror. He couldn't face himself. And he wasn't sure how he was going to face Blair either. 

Blair and Skinner were just on the other side of the wall from him, just a few feet away. In bathroom together, arguing good-naturedly over which man was going to pee first. Running water on cloths. Cloth scrubbing over skin, the crinkle of body hair against soft, wet terrycloth. A different sound than his own smooth, almost hairless clean-up. 

As he lifted the toilet seat, one of them urinated into the bowl. It made his bladder ache, like listening to water running when he'd had too much to drink. 

//Hey! I was supposed to go first.// Blair jostled Skinner, who sucked in a breath and managed to stop the flow of urine. 

//You'll make a mess.// Skinner growled at him. 

Blair laughed, //I thought you liked it messy,'' and he did whatever it was he was doing again. //Then move over.// 

Jim urinated, sighing with pleasure. As he rinsed his cloth, wet another for Mulder, he realized with a shock that Skinner had done exactly what Blair said. He'd stepped over. They were urinating at the same time. Standing side by side, skin touching skin. Kissing, hands stroking over skin. Two streams pattering into the bowl together. 

Jim's head jerked up. He met his own gaze in the mirror. His face was still flushed with orgasm, but now it flushed hotter. It was so...intimate. More intimate than the kissing and the fucking and the knowing so much about each other. Decadent and erotic, and it shouldn't be, should it? Jealousy clutched at him with red spiked claws. He'd never had a relationship like that with a man. He'd never had one like that with a woman. He'd never wanted one like that with anyone. It was just too...familiar. Too naked. 

They left the bathroom together, still touching. Crawled back into the bed together and snuggled in, rearranging sheets and limbs until they were settled. Blair lay his head on Skinner's chest, muffling the beat of the other man's heart, scrubbing his evening beard against chest hair. 

Moving on automatic, Jim went back into the bedroom. Mulder was nearly asleep. He barely registered the damp cloth being swiped over him. Didn't even protest when Jim wrestled the comforter, blanket and sheet from under him and wrapped them over him. 

Jim sorted his clothes from the bits and pieces of Mulder's that were strewn from the connecting door almost to the bed. His boxers had to be there, somewhere--he could remember Mulder's hands cupping his ass as he pushed them off--but he couldn't find them. 

Around a mouthful of pillow, Mulder mumbled, "You don't have to go. You're welcome to stay." He rolled up out of the covers and smiled. "I'd like you to stay." 

Jim paused, khakis held open in his hands, ready to be stepped into. He wouldn't have hesitated to fuck and run if it had been some stranger who'd picked him up in a bar. But he had to see this stranger again, maybe face him over a conference table, because even if Simon was willing to let the cases go, he wasn't. It wouldn't necessarily make it any easier to face Mulder over a case file if he spent the night in his bed, but-- 

Then Skinner said softly, //Come back to DC with me.// 

And Jim knew that nothing would make him budge from the room. Nothing would make him stop listening. 

//What?// There was the glide of bodies moving. Sheets slithering and the subtle pop of neck joints and the silken hiss of hair on skin. 

Jim could see it in his head. Blair, slumped bonelessly over Skinner, his hair spread out over a broad, sweaty shoulder. Then the question breaking the silence, and Blair raising up, peering into the other man's eyes. What would it be like, to be the one lying there, warmed by a naked Blair, staring into those glistening blue eyes? 

Mulder looked up at him, blinked sleepily. He lifted up the edge of the covers and held them open to him. Inviting him back in. 

After a moment, Jim dropped his pants over the back of a chair and slid into the warm pocket Mulder had made in the bed. Mulder snuggled up against him, fitting his legs alongside Jim's and his head into the hollow of Jim's shoulder. 

//Come back to DC with me. Stay with me.// 

Mulder nuzzled his collarbone. "You're listening again. What are they doing?" 

Jim wanted to clap his hand over Mulder's mouth to make sure he didn't miss the answer. Mulder nudged him with his chin, and he said, hurriedly, "No. I was just thinking I should go home." 

"You don't have to go. There's no reason--" Mulder stiffened suddenly and jerked his head up from Jim's shoulder. "You're not married, are you?" 

Jim shook his head, and Mulder settled back down, wrapping an arm across his belly. "Good." 

//Walter...// Blair breathed it. Like it was a benediction, a prayer offered up to the sky. 

Jim sucked in air, trying to be quiet and not alert Mulder. Trying to ease the tightness across his chest that paralleled the arm lying over his stomach. The muscles in his gut cramped until he thought they would shatter if he tried to push one more breath down against them. 

//It would work, Blair. You could finish your doctorate there. And I-- It would be so good to come home to you every night.// 

The bed squeaked and skin slid on skin and they kissed, long and slow. Blair's hands ran over skin, ruffled chest hair. Across and down and down. 

Skinner sighed as he was fondled, stroked. 

//Yes,// Blair said finally. //It would be good. We were always good together. The best. But you know I can't leave Jim.// 

The band that, just seconds before, had been lying like lead, like granite, across his chest, shattered into bits. Mulder moved against him, stroking across his skin as if he was brushing away the dusty remnants. 

//I figured something like that, even if you did say you weren't together.// 

//We're not together. Not...like that. But I can't leave him. It's...complicated.// Blair pulled Skinner up to him for a kiss, to whisper in his ear. //Besides, be fair. You know who you really want to come home to every night. I'd just be a substitute.// 

//Christ.// There was the sound of springs creaking, as if a big body had flopped back down onto the bed. The kind of crunch/crinkle of fingers being worked against eyelids. //I'm not sure I like this grown-up you. Didn't I used to be better at fooling you?// 

Blair laughed. //No. Never.// 

There was a long silence during which Jim lay perfectly still, staring at the ceiling. Listening to them have sex, he could excuse as being caught up in the moment. Thinking with his dick. And listening to them pee...well, that was weird and kinky and exciting in a decadent sort of way. But this...there was no excusing it. None. He was guilty of the kind of invasion he would never tolerate from Blair. And he would just have to live with it, because there was no way he could tune them out. 

//I'd have to be blind not to see it, Walter. You can't take your eyes off him. And he wants you, too. Everything he says, everything he does, it's like he's holding his breath, waiting to see if it'll get a reaction out of you. And you stiffen that jaw up like somebody shot you up with starch. What's up with you, man?// 

Skinner sighed. Deeply, with as much regret and maybe even more sorrow than when Blair had asked about his marriage. //Like you said, it's complicated. Mulder's... Mulder's beautiful and brilliant and one of the most courageous men I've ever known. There's nothing, _nothing_ , he's afraid to look at. He's made me define heroism in a whole new way.// 

The last piece of the puzzle fell into place. The shadowy things his contact couldn't understand about Skinner, the way he seemed to champion the man he'd been told to control. The way Skinner handled Mulder, with stern control and infinite patience. And the way Skinner had glared at Jim when Mulder was flirting with him in the bar. Some detective he was! 

He looked down at the man who was almost asleep, drooling on his shoulder. Jim reached up and stroked Mulder's hair. It really was as silky and as soft as it looked. Just like the downy hair cushioning his cock. 

//He's beautiful and brilliant. And he'd be all over you if you quirked one finger. That's very complicated, Walter.// 

Mulder hummed his approval of the fingers stroking through his hair and shifted, lifting up his mouth to be kissed. Jim barely hesitated before accepting the invitation. Mulder's mouth was as soft, as lush, as it looked. Not exactly sweet and fresh, but earthy and salty and different. Oddly exotic, like there was something there, under his skin, other than water and salt and copper. 

Mulder sighed happily and licked at Jim's lips, meeting the slow thrusting of his tongue. 

Skinner sighed unhappily. //Because he's also made me redefine foolhardy. In addition to brave and strong and brilliant, he's strange. Strange and--christ, so fucked up. I never know what he's going to do next. Sometimes I'm not even sure he's sane. Sometimes, I think that the part of all this he likes the most, the part that makes his dick hard, is knowing that I don't know.// 

Blair laughed. //God, Walter, you've gotten so staid. Like all you want to do is sit home in your rocking chair and knit. I thought you liked excitement. I though you liked taking chances.// 

Jim couldn't help but steal another kiss. Skinner was right. There'd never be a dull moment with Mulder around, and Skinner didn't even know the half of it. Hadn't even guessed at the possibilities. Yet. But now that Mulder had seen the possibilities... Jim grinned. 

Skinner snorted. //There's taking chances, and then there's suicide. Jumping without a parachute's exciting, but you only get to do it once.// 

//You're just scared,// Blair said gently, soothing Skinner with his hands and his voice. 

//To death,// Skinner admitted ruefully. //It's not just that he's a complete fucking flake.// He sighed. //I guess I actually kind of like that part. But complicated is too simple a word for what could happen if we were caught. The situation with work... I can't explain it, Blair. There are things I can't tell you. But if Mulder and I were together, if anyone found out...// 

//And when has that ever been any different? Do you know how many movies I missed because we couldn't go out? People still make references to things and then look at me like I'm crazy when I don't get it, because it's from some movie that everybody else saw twenty times. And we drove an hour each way every day. And kept the blinds drawn. And never bought rubbers in the same store twice in a row. And--// 

//This is different. I can't explain it, but Mulder and me getting caught... It would be worse. Much worse. It would-- Just take my word for it, okay?// Skinner's voice had gone stern and gruff, the way he had been during the conference. 

It was the first time Jim had heard him rebuff Blair that way. The first time he'd heard him raise that abrupt exterior to Blair. 

//So I shouldn't ask?// Blair said quietly. 

//Not about this. I don't want you to know more.// 

//Like you don't want us to know more about these cases you're working on?// 

Jim could hear Skinner's jaw working, teeth grinding. //Yes. Exactly like that. I don't want you involved. And if you care about Jim, then you don't want him involved either.// 

There were sounds of skin and sheets and hair again, and Jim knew Blair had settled back down on Skinner. His arm ached with wanting to feel that weight, with wanting to know the warm scratch of Blair's cheek, pressed just above his armpit, the tickle of hair falling against his throat. He touched Mulder's face softly, regretfully. Ashamed to be holding one man and wishing for another. 

Blair changed the subject. Easily. Willingly. As if he understood all the things Skinner wasn't saying. Jim would have been shaking the man, demanding to know what he knew, but Blair just let it go. His voice moved easily from serious to tender teasing. //So let me get this straight. You're willing to risk the dangers of a same sex relationship for me, but not for the man you really love?// 

Skinner sighed again, a drawn out sound of much exasperation. //Have I mentioned I'm not sure I like this logical, grown-up you?// 

There was so much affection in the man's voice, it made Jim hurt. Skinner knew Blair so well. And Blair knew him. Accepted him for who he was the same way he'd accepted Jim. Another pang of jealousy bit at him. 

//It wouldn't be any safer with you that way. But it would only be my reputation and my job I'd be risking, and if I lost it, then...I'd move on. But Mulder's... Mulder needs to be where he is. I don't think he'd make it through if somebody pulled that out from under him right now. But I think if anyone threatened to out you, you'd just laugh in his face, go to the nearest window and shout, _I'm queer, and I just butt-fucked an Assistant Director of the FBI_.// 

Blair chortled. //I'm bi. And I'd never say butt-fucked. That's so crude.// 

Skinner laughed, too. //This from the man who was just crawled across my bed, squealing _fuck me in the ass_?// 

//Squealing! I do not squeal.// There was the sound of another pounce. Skinner grunted and tried to defend himself, then gasped as he obviously couldn't. Choked laughter and protests rang as they grappled, then a sigh of pleasure as Blair was pinned to stillness, kissed to breathlessness. 

In the long silence that ensued, Jim strained, hating his curiosity and the absolute need to know what Blair was doing. It was like walking into the middle of a horrible crime scene, hating to look, having to look. Knowing that he was cheating, but willing to do whatever was necessary to know. 

But they didn't appear to be doing anything but lying together. Soft breathing, gentle stroking of a hand on somebody's back. Or maybe a hip. Strong, square fingers stroking the square, masculine curve of hip. 

Skinner said, //And I _really_ love you.// 

Blair rewarded him with a gentle, prolonged kiss. //I really love you, too. But it's not the same, and you know what I mean. What the hell happened to your balls, man? The Walter Skinner I knew, he would have risked anything for a chance with somebody he cared about. He did risk everything for that.// 

//Yeah,// Skinner said bitterly. //And look where it got me. Seventeen years wasted on my big chance, and all I've got to show for it is divorce papers and an empty apartment to come home to.// There was a long indrawn breath, a long silence. //I think... I got older, Blair. And disenchanted. And...you're right...afraid to take chances. I hate to disappoint you, but I don't think I'm ever going to hear the mermaid's singing.// 

Blair laughed, delighted. //Teach me to hear mermaid's singing. Oh, man, I can't believe you remember that.// 

//Of course I remember it. When I'm sitting in my rocking chair, in the dark, reminiscing about old times, I think about it. You know how us old geezers like to dream about the good old days.// 

//Oh, yeah," Blair snorted. "Old. Ancient. Do you take your teeth out and soak them in a jar now?// 

More tussling and tickling and punching of pillows. But then Skinner subdued Blair again and pulled him into his arms. //It really was a good time, Blair. I came with Mulder on this trip...well, I came because with Scully staying with her family, I need to keep an eye on him, but I was hoping I'd see you. Sometimes when things get so crazy, I think about us. I think about coming home and you'd be sitting in front of the fireplace with papers strewn across half the room, and I'd sit there with a glass of wine and listen to your voice...// 

//I still read things aloud to memorize them,// Blair admitted. //And it always makes me think of you helping me with that damned lit class. Making me read all that crappy poetry aloud so I'd remember it.// 

//Sometimes, it seems like the closest I've been to normal in my whole life. Sometimes, I think I'll never have that kind of normal again.// 

//I think you're the only person in my whole life who ever thought of life with me as _normal_.// Blair's words were teasing, but his indrawn breath was ragged, like something was caught in his throat. 

For a moment, Jim felt the sadness, too. He felt sympathy for Skinner, a kinship that was painful in its recognition. He _had_ that normalcy with Blair, and he'd never appreciated it before now. Had never acknowledged how much it meant. 

The strong hug in which Skinner held Blair was returned, then Blair sat up and wrestled with the bedclothes, straightening them out. Settled back down, dragging the blanket with him. 

Jim knew he really should get up. Go home and sleep in his own bed. Stop torturing himself with the sounds of Blair settling to sleep in another man's arms. But he was tired. And Mulder was so warm. Breathing heavily against his nipple. And he was starting to drift pleasantly. To reach that place where the walls blurred, and he could let his senses blur, too. 

The last thing Jim heard before he drifted off to sleep was Blair, voice muffled against Skinner's neck. 

//Mulder sort of strikes me as the kind of guy who'd enjoy reading crappy poetry aloud.// 

* * *

[Continued in part two](mermaidssinging_a.html).

Text version of part two: http://www.squidge.org/archive/cgi-bin/convert.cgi?filename=1_2000_xover/mermaidssinging_a.html 


	2. Mermaids Singing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The comfort zone - that's how Jim would have described his relationship with Blair, warm and unthreatened. That is, until three Suits from the FBI show up to see his files on a missing persons case, and Jim learns some truths about Blair. And some about himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> // = overheard dialogue
> 
> This story was originally printed in rac's wonderful zine, Wounded Heroes. And in addition to having a zine to hold in my hands, I discovered something about being published in a zine--when you're ready to post to the net, you get to edit yourself all over again! :-) Therefore, this version is slightly different from the WH version, but not significantly different. 
> 
> My thanks to rac (and her beta readers). Any mistakes are mine, because I played with it after they fixed it.:-) And also thanks to rac for inviting me to be a part of such a quality zine. It was a lovely way to be re-introduced to zinedom after so many years away. 
> 
> I apologize in advance for this story. About halfway through, not only did it grow a plot!, but I realized I was writing the kind of story I didn't like to read--a crossover, an almost everybody's gay story, an everybody does everybody story (almost), a Jim & Blair screw somebody else story. But...it demanded to come out anyway. And rac would have sent the bounty hunter me if I'd backed out at that stage. :-) 
> 
> If you'd rather read the pretty version, with italics instead of those damned //, follow the link to Mermaids at www.enook.net/woundedheroes.htm, and don't forget to check out the other great stories while you're there.

Jim opened his eyes cautiously.

Dawn was just beginning to pink the lacy curtains across the room. Lace curtains. He'd never had lace curtains, not even when he was married. Strange room. A warm, unfamiliar body beside him. Alarm tweaked his muscles but then the warm body moved against him, and he recognized the weight and scent and knew where he was.

Mulder had turned in his sleep and edged down until the back of his head was lodged in Jim's armpit. He was plastered to Jim from his shoulders down, a smooth, long line of back warming his ribs, the soft curve of Mulder's ass pressed into his thigh.

It shouldn't have taken him so long to figure out where he was but his hearing had fooled him. Lulled him into feeling the safety of home, because the sound that had wakened him was the sound that woke him so many mornings…the sound of Blair's voice.

But not Blair's voice calling to him to wake up, or talking to himself as he cooked breakfast. This was Blair's voice the way he'd never heard it before last night, raspy and throaty and rough with sexuality. Sloppy, slurping sounds that could only mean one thing. And Skinner groaning, "God, Blair, you're just too damn good at that."

Irritated, Jim flipped back the covers, eased away from Mulder. His lost boxers were handing in a twist across the reading lamp beside the easy chair, and now that he saw them, he did vaguely remember Mulder flinging them away last night. He snatched them up and shook them to unravel the legs. It was bad enough to wake up not knowing where he was, and once he'd recognized where, to feel like a damn fool for being there. It was worse that what he was hearing was making his cock stand up so straight that he had to squash it to zip his pants. But those little phrases that spoke of lovers who knew each other so well were just too much to hear on an empty stomach.

Yanking his shirt on, he started around the bed towards the bathroom and stepped on something long and hard. It snapped beneath his bare foot and gouged his heel.

Mulder's toothbrush. It had one of those little plastic things over the head, but the handle was exposed. And now in two pieces.

He cursed under his breath. His foot throbbed, and he couldn't shut off the pain, any more than he could shut out the sound of Skinner enjoying his partner's mouth so unashamedly, so languidly. He went to his knees, picked up the things Mulder had shoved off the bed the night before and stuffed them back into the leather kit.

Flashes of sensory memory seized him. Mulder's pale ass, swaying suggestively before his gaze. Mulder's coquettish smile back over his shoulder. The salt, wine and oregano scent of Mulder's breath, and the sweet alitaste of his skin. And the intoxicating, exhilarating sense of all of them. All three of them, on his skin and in his lungs, ribbons of sound twining through his ears and into his brain. Blair telling Skinner he could never leave Jim.

And that was it, wasn't it? It wasn't the sound of lovemaking, or the way his body was sizzling with it, or even the toothbrush-shaped scrape on his foot. It was Blair saying I can't leave Jim. Not I don't want to leave Jim, but I can't. And even if Blair had said it the right way, how could he believe it? Because why would Blair give up what he'd heard between the two men last night? What he could hear happening now?

Jim left Mulder asleep in his rumpled bed. He left the sounds of Blair and Skinner rumpling theirs more.

He went by the loft and showered. Changed clothes and made it in to work only a few minutes late. If Simon noticed, he didn't comment. He brought Jim all the files on their missing persons/murders and suggested he go through them again with an eye for the bits and pieces of information he'd gleaned the day before.

Blair called mid-morning, his vital signs all level and calm and his voice bright and breezy. Even Jim's growl—"I'm fine, Sandburg. What were you expecting?"—didn't faze him. He was heading off to class, and what was Jim working on, and hadn't Jim like Giulatti's, and he might be running a little late this afternoon because he'd scheduled a meeting with a student who couldn't make his normal office hours.

Jim hung up the phone and went back to work and refused to let himself even think about what was going on in his head. About how his body responded to Blair's voice, and maybe he'd always responded that way and just been too stupid to see it. About how much he'd wanted to whisper his thanks that Blair was going to stay with him, and didn't he want to reconsider, considering that he didn't have a clue how to make Blair happy the way Walter Skinner did.

The phone rang again, and he snarled his name into it.

"Jim? It's Mulder."

Jim ran his hand over his head, ruffling his hair. Pretending that he didn't feel a blush creeping up from under his collar.

Mulder's voice was as bright and breezy as Blair's, but with that note of self-mocking laughter hovering in it. "How're you doing this morning?"

What was it with everybody? Was he giving off some kind of I'm not okay vibes? "I'm fine. How about you?"

Mulder laughed, low and sultry. "I'm great. A little…tenderized. But fine. And wondering why my toothbrush is in two pieces."

"Oh, shit!" He'd forgotten about that. He'd been so freaked, he'd stuffed the broken pieces back into Mulder's overnight bag without thinking. "I forgot. I stepped on it when I got up this morning."

Mulder laughed again. "Yeah. I do recall stuff hitting the floor in the heat of battle."

Jim wished he would stop that low octave laugh. And the easy references to the night before. He face was so hot it was going to scorch his collar. And his pants were two sizes too small. And he was starting to feel like a cat in heat, homing in on anything that moved. Just the merest lowering of voice, or the briefest touch, and his cock twitched like its switch had shorted out. He changed the subject. "Tell me how you're going to find the next victim."

"Tell me how you could hear into another room."

There was nothing Jim could say to that. Nothing he was going to say. Except it cooled his ardor as effectively as having ice water thrown on his crotch. "Look, you're the one who slipped me the business card. Did you want to help me, or not?"

The silence drew out uncomfortably, then Mulder said lightly, "Call me when you're ready to deal," and shifted the phone as if he was hanging up.

"Mulder…" Jim growled a warning.

The other man came back on the line, serious this time. Sobered. "I can't tell you how, but I'll call you if I find anything. I'll help you all I can. And maybe you can help me."

The line went dead. Jim went back to his files, barely looking up when Blair breezed in.

He took one look at Jim's frowning face and breezed off again. In twenty minutes, he returned with a drink and a sandwich and plopped the plate and cup down at Jim's elbow. Fresh tuna salad with mayo and pickles on sourdough and tea with extra ice, just the way Jim liked it.

"You skipped lunch, didn't you? I can tell because you're not your usual happy, charming self."

Jim's scowl would have been much more effective if his stomach hadn't chosen that moment to growl. He inhaled the scent of pickles and Blair. And hotel soap.

Blair ignored the scowl that replaced his frown and grabbed a chair. It squeaked like fingernails on a blackboard as he dragged it behind Jim's desk. When Jim winced, he carried the chair the rest of the way, then sat and leaned over the files. "So… What have you got?"

Jim, mouth full of tuna salad, pointed to the legal pad, turned horizontal and covered with charts and arrows, where he'd been going over everything again. "Just trying to find a connection. There's got to be something that links these guys. Mulder told Skinner…" he paused.

Just the mention of the man's name rated a blip in Blair's heartbeat.

Jim covered by gulping tea and rushing past the name this time. "Mulder told Skinner that there would be more murders. And Skinner said that they would try to find the vics before they were killed."

"So you're trying to figure out some way to find the next guy, too." After a moment, Blair nodded. "You know what the really weird thing is here?"

"You mean, the really weird thing other than all of it?" He said it rather testily, but he was listening. He always listened, because in amongst the esoteric, often interesting, mostly useless information that poured out of Blair, there was frequently some gem that set him to thinking, something that sent him in a new direction.

Blair grinned. "Yeah. The weirdest thing. To me, anyway, is the way these guys all look so much alike. I mean, that's significant, right? That's the only connection we've found so far. You already mentioned it. And one of your theories is that this is a serial killer targeting men who meet this description."

"Right… That's standard. A serial killer often goes after a certain body type, or hair color, or behavior. Some trigger. But this is…" He searched around for a word and couldn't come up with one better than Blair's. "Weird. They're not just similar. They're enough alike to be brothers. But they're not."

"Are we sure they're not?"

Jim tapped the pad, lifted up a couple of the files and flipped through the reports. "DNA reports haven't come back yet. But there are birth records for all of them that appear to be legitimate, and they're all different. If they're related, somebody's gone to an awful lot of trouble to cover it up."

The only way Jim could think of to find the next guy was to follow Mulder around and see what he did. Except—

"So how is the killer—?"

Jim slashed at the air, signaling for silence. Because he had a thought there, an idea trying to pop through.

Blair went silent immediately. Sat up straighter on the edge of his chair, tense and waiting for him to think it through.

Jim let his awareness drift away from Blair, back to the thought that had tickled at the edge of his consciousness. Before Mulder moved to the X-Files, he was a profiler. One of the Bureau's best. And Mulder had done some of his most brilliant work on serial cases.

"Jim?" Blair laid his fingertips on his arm gently. "You got something?"

"Yeah. Maybe. Mulder's a profiler who's done a lot of work on serial murders. And he seems to know a lot about this case…"

"So…" Blair drew the word out, thinking, then picked up steam as he made the same connections that Jim had. "…maybe this killer has recently shifted his base of operation to Cascade. And if we could find out about the cases Mulder's been working on, we'd find out more about this one."

Jim nodded, grinning at Blair. In step and in sync.

"So how do we find out about Mulder's old cases?"

Jim bit his lip, because the first response that popped into his mind was pillow talk. He wasn't ready to go there. In fact, he couldn't see himself being ready to go there in his lifetime. "I have some contacts in DC." He looked at his watch. "But it's too late to call. It'll have to wait until tomorrow morning." He looked at the spread of papers and photos on his desk. At the wadded pieces of paper filling his trash can. At the page on his legal pad, almost covered in boxes and scratched out ideas. Almost ready for the trash can itself. "Help me finish this, just for the hell of it. We might still find something."

"Sure." Blair scooted closer and took up the next page of the next file. And occasionally, in the middle of the work, Blair smiled at him. A pleased, in-sync smile.

Jim managed to forget most everything but the files and the mystery. The almost tranquilizing delight of following a trail. The contentment of working with Blair. The joy of his smile. It was after 6:00 when he wadded up another sheet of paper, tossed it in the direction of the trash can and bounced the paper ball off Simon's leg instead.

"Are you guys going home tonight?"

Jim looked up to find his captain standing over him, coat slung over his arm, fresh, unlit cigar clenched in his fingers. Jim sighed and stretched, counting the pops and crackles along his spine. "Yeah, I guess so, Simon. The only progress we're making here is confirming that we've got nothing."

Blair stood, too, and stretched. His younger spine gave off noticeably fewer creaks. He gathered up the papers, shuffling them back into the proper files and handed the stack over to Jim to lock in his desk.

By the time Jim turned around, he had his coat on and was holding Jim's out to him.

"You riding with me, Chief, or did you drive in?" Sometimes Blair took the bus to the precinct so that they could ride home together, usually on a night when they were planning on eating out.

"I took the bus, but I'm meeting Walter for dinner." A flush of pink crept out of Blair's collar, crawled up his throat and along his jaw. "He's picking me up out front in about 30 minutes."

"Oh. Okay." Jim could smell the heat on Blair, like some internal furnace had just kicked on. All the emotions and questions he'd kept at bay all day came flooding in, and he turned away, sure that his own face had flushed just as hot.

Blair tagged along beside him to the elevator. "You want to come along?"

Jim shivered, thinking of another night like last night, rutting like an animal in heat and listening to his best friend doing the same. Knowing that he'd be welcome in Mulder's bed and he'd do it again, given the chance. His dick was already half hard, just from the idea. He could hear the elevator, groaning and creaking its way up. In only a few seconds, the doors would open and he'd be trapped in the tiny space with Blair. Smelling his anticipation. "No, I don't want to waste another evening eating yuppie food and listening to you guys talk over old times, Sandburg."

Blair's mouth dropped open and those big, blue eyes widened.

Feeling like he'd just stolen some kid's lollipop, Jim thunked the steel door hard enough to make it rattle. "This fucking thing gets slower every day. I'm taking the stairs." And even though he could hear the squeak that signaled the elevator's arrival, he took off before Blair could even open his mouth.

Before he'd gone two blocks, he actually considered going back and trying to catch Blair, standing out on the street, waiting for his date. But he didn't know what he would say to him. And he scowled and tried to make it all feel like Blair's fault. What kind of dick was Sandburg, anyway, to invite him along to dinner with his ex-lover? But he really couldn't hold onto anything but the sense of gloom that had been growing since Walter Skinner walked into Major Crimes.

Instead of going back or going home, Jim pulled into the parking lot of the Cascade Public Library.

This branch of the library was in an old, old building. It was huge, paneled in dusty mahogany and full of echoes. It had high, high ceilings, and stacks of books rising up above his head, and a spiraling iron staircase that rang like a gong whenever someone ascended to another level. It smelled of new paper and old paper dust and ink. Dozens of people were seated at long tables, bent over open books. Pages turned, pens scratched on pads. It was like being surrounded by a hundred Blairs, wrapped in familiarity with none of the dangers of the familiar.

He asked for help on how to find the author of a particular piece of poetry and received it from a woman with her hair pinned back in the stereotypical librarian's bun, wearing an anything but stereotypical tight, red sweater. She smiled at him, warm and inviting, but he only registered it as an afterthought, as a tight little twinge that, only yesterday, a woman making eyes at him would have been very pleasing. But today, he wanted it to be Blair who was looking at him that way.

After going through the reference book she gave him, he found a volume of the poet's work and carried it to one of the long tables. He found the piece he wanted after reading through several pages, just because they were there and they caught his eye. It wasn't exactly his cup of tea, but it was hardly what he would call crappy poetry. And then he found the thing for which he'd come looking, entitled only Song.

Go and catch a falling star,  
Get with child a mandrake root,  
Tell me where all past years are,  
Or who cleft the devil's foot,  
Teach me to hear mermaid's singing,  
Or to keep off envy's stinging,  
And find  
What wind  
Serves to advance an honest mind.  
If thou be'st born to strange sights,  
Things invisible go see,  
Ride ten thousand days and nights,  
Till Age snow white hairs on thee;  
Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me,  
All strange wonders that befell thee…

He read the rest of it, and immediately dismissed it, because the ending of the song was about trying to find a woman who would be true, and it really didn't apply. But the first of it…the first of it was…eerie. Uncanny. Weird the way he could see them in the words, Blair, Mulder, Skinner, himself. The way so much of it could be applied to his own life today, even though it was something from Blair's past, something written 300 years ago.

But that was what poetry was supposed to do, wasn't it? Capture the truths that were eternal, remind people of what they were. Truths like attempting the impossible. Looking inside himself. Taking chances. Things he'd never been very good at.

He sat there in darkening room, watching the beams of sunlight slowly retreat across the beaded ceiling, re-reading the lines over and over again. Surrounded by the sound and smell of substitute Blairs, he tried to untangle all the skeins of thought and emotion he'd been stuffing down. Jealousy and fear and envy. And desire.

He knew what he wanted. He knew that it scared him, even if he didn't have the courage to say it out loud, the way Skinner did. He just wasn't sure how to go about getting it. Or even if he'd waited too late to try. And most frightening of all was his surety that what he wanted wasn't the best thing for Blair.

*****


	3. Mermaids Singing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The comfort zone - that's how Jim would have described his relationship with Blair, warm and unthreatened. That is, until three Suits from the FBI show up to see his files on a missing persons case, and Jim learns some truths about Blair. And some about himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> // = overheard dialogue
> 
> This story was originally printed in rac's wonderful zine, Wounded Heroes. And in addition to having a zine to hold in my hands, I discovered something about being published in a zine--when you're ready to post to the net, you get to edit yourself all over again! Therefore, this version is slightly different from the WH version, but not significantly different. 
> 
> My thanks to rac (and her beta readers). Any mistakes are mine, because I played with it after they fixed it. And also thanks to rac for inviting me to be a part of such a quality zine. It was a lovely way to be re-introduced to zinedom after so many years away. 
> 
> I apologize in advance for this story. About halfway through, not only did it grow a plot!, but I realized I was writing the kind of story I didn't like to read--a crossover, an almost everybody's gay story, an everybody does everybody story (almost), a Jim & Blair screw somebody else story. But...it demanded to come out anyway. And rac would have sent the bounty hunter me if I'd backed out at that stage. 
> 
> If you'd rather read the pretty version, with italics instead of those damned //, follow the link to Mermaids at   
> http://web.archive.org/web/20030320164038/http://www.enook.net/mermaids.htm  
> and don't forget to check out the other great stories while you're there.

At 10:00, the phone rang.

Jim knew it was Blair. Nursing his third beer and slowly turning the pages of the book of poetry he'd checked out of the library, he started not to answer it. But then he remembered that he'd decided not to be selfish or envious, so he picked up the receiver.

"Jim?" Blair's voice was tentative, unsure of the reception he'd receive considering Jim's parting shot that afternoon.

Jim felt like an ass all over again. "Hey, Chief. How was dinner?"

Blair's voice brightened considerably. "Good. It was good. We went to that Thai place over on Scott."

Jim interrupted before he could even get the rest of it out. "You staying with Skinner again?"

"Uh—Well…yeah. If you don't need me for anything."

Jim took a good, deep breath before he answered. "No, that's fine. I'm just catching up on a little reading." His voice was good. Strong and steady. Not one little waver in it. Not one little catch as he thought of Blair touching Skinner and making him moan.

Blair hesitated though, as if he'd heard something Jim hadn't. As if there was something he was waiting for Jim to say. "Well… Okay. Good night, Jim."

"Night."

Before he could hang up, Blair said, "Oh, hey. I'm meeting Walter for lunch tomorrow, then I'll come in right after to help you. I only had one appointment in the afternoon, and I bribed the kid into rescheduling."

"Never say bribe to an officer of the law, Sandburg."

Blair laughed, still a little strained. There was that hesitation again. Blair waiting.

But Jim didn't know what he was waiting for. And he didn't know what he wanted to say, so he simply said, "'Night, Chief."

He hung up before Blair could say anything else, and went to bed before he could think about Blair and Skinner, or what Mulder was doing, alone in his room next door to them.

He woke early the next morning and started making calls before the sun was up. DC, and his contacts, were already awake and working. By lunchtime, he wasn't sure he was any closer to solving the case, but he had a pad of notes and a couple of serial cases with Mulder's spoor all over them. And maybe enough ammunition to shake some information out of the agent.

He could hear Simon bellowing for Rhonda to find him before the elevator stopped. His cell phone started ringing as the doors slid open.

Cell phone pressed to his ear, struggling to drag his coat onto his other arm, Simon was standing in the doorway of his office. As he spotted Jim, he punched a button his phone.

Jim's phone stopped beeping.

Simon started dialing again. "Ellison! I was calling you. We're moving. Mulder's got something."

Jim walked slowly over to Simon, scanning the office. He didn't see Mulder anywhere.

"He called for you. Rhonda took a message. She didn't know to give him your cell phone. I'm calling Blair now."

Jim opened his mouth to protest. It was lunchtime. He was pretty sure he knew where Blair was. "Simon, let's just—"

Blair answered. Even over the phone line, Jim could hear his elevated heartbeat, his not quite level breathing. The definitely ragged breathing of someone else, very near him.

"Sandburg!" The coat finally slid into place, and Simon shifted the phone to his other ear. "Where are you?"

"Uh… I—uh… On my way to lunch with Walter."

"Skinner's with you? Good. Mulder thinks he's found another victim. Alive. Jim and I are on our way. Meet us there." He dug a piece of paper out of his pocket and read off the address to Blair.

Jim heard Blair relay the information to Skinner. Heard Skinner's curse and the sound of him rearranging his clothing, a zipper sliding home. Jim turned away, to get away from the sounds, to keep Simon from seeing his face before he could rearrange it. But he couldn't get far enough away to tune out Blair's breathing. To not hear the fear and worry in Skinner's gruffness when he got Mulder on his cellphone.

//"Mulder! Banks just called."//

Simon gave Jim a little push from behind, rushing him towards the elevator, phone still pressed to his ear. "Sandburg? What the hell's going on there?"

"Walter's got Mulder on the line."

Fainter, but even more worried. //"Mulder? Mulder, dammit, don't you go in alone. That's an order. You wait for us."//

Blair again. "We're on our way, Simon. Watch out for Jim until I get there."

*****

A shiny, clean rental car and a man clothed in an expensive overcoat were easy to spot in that neighborhood, even if Mulder did have the car tucked in tight under the eave of a neglected building. Simon drove his car up over the curb and pulled in behind him. Jim and Simon jumped out and took cover where Mulder was crouched, peering around the front of his car.

"Over there. The second floor apartment on the left corner." He pointed across the street at an apartment building halfway down the next block. It was gray stone, mossy but in good repair, and as nondescript, as unprepossessing, as the other victims’ homes had been. The area was deserted, eerily quiet for midday, with only a few dusty cars parked along the streets.

"I found a man who looks just like the others. By the time I got to where he works, he'd gone. Left to go to lunch with another man, according to his co-workers. But they thought it looked suspicious. Like the guy didn't really want to go. There were a couple of kids playing in the street when I got here. They saw the two men go in, but nobody's come out."

"Could've gone out the back," Simon said, looking at Jim for confirmation.

Jim turned his head, concentrated, closed his eyes to shut out the light. The same way Blair had discovered he could piggyback his sight onto his hearing, he'd also discovered that sight could distract his hearing. He filtered out the faraway noises easily, traffic and honking horns and churning machinery. Then the thumping hearts of the two men near him, the rushing of gas in underground pipes. Refrigerators and water dripping and a lone television blaring in a nearby building.

He strained to find the apartment. That was harder than filtering, making his hearing go exactly where he wanted. But it finally did, and he found two heartbeats. One faint and slushy, the other thundering. Lungs working like bellows. But no words. Two men were there, in the corner apartment, but they weren't speaking or moving.

A car pulled up nearby, and he dragged himself back to the present. A commonplace, shiny clean sedan similar to Mulder's slammed to a stop at the curb. Skinner and Blair jumped out of it and crossed the lot, jogging side by side. Dressed like Mulder, in an expensive gray suit and a long black coat, Skinner looked like a caped crusader dashing in to save them.

Blair came straight to Jim and hunkered down at his elbow. He smelled of Skinner. All over, of Skinner. In his pores. Like the man had scrubbed his hands all over him. And Skinner smelled of Blair's saliva. Not all over. Just at mouth and neck and nipples and groin.

Jim's stomach twinged pleasantly with the thought of Blair swiping his tongue over him. His nipples hardened as he stared at Blair's mouth.

"Jim? You okay?"

Yanking himself back to the business at hand, Jim sneered at him. "We just got there, Sandburg. I haven't had time to fall on my face yet."

While Mulder filled Skinner in on what was happening, Blair just looked at Jim, that over-the-glasses, get-a-grip expression that needed no words. Then he put his fingers on Jim's elbow and waited expectantly.

"There are two men in there," Jim told Simon and Mulder. "They're not talking. One's scared. One sounds…odd, like his heart's not beating right."

Simon flicked a glance at Mulder, then Skinner, surprised for Jim to speak so freely in front of them. He was obviously even more surprised that Mulder accepted the information with bright, interested eyes, but no questions.

Skinner had questions, though. He opened his mouth, but Jim cut him off by turning away.

"Try to piggyback your sight on the sounds. See what they're doing through the window," Blair suggested, speaking so only he could hear.

"That window's got blinds," Jim growled, but Blair just shifted closer to him, tightened his grip on Jim's arm.

"I've seen you work with less," he said calmly.

Sighing, refusing to be distracted by the memory of what he'd seen through just a tiny sliver of an open door, Jim nodded and pushed a little closer to Blair. He let his hearing range back across to the apartment. But this time, with Blair there to watch his back, he kept his eyes open.

The window was a big one, surprising in the miserly apartments, and wrapped around the corner of the building. It had no curtains, just the blinds tilted at an angle designed to cut out most of the sun light. Behind the barely opened slats, Jim could see a shadow moving. Falling.

On a peripheral level, Jim felt the sting as he slapped his hand over Blair's, rubbing the scent of Skinner off Blair's fingers and onto himself.

Behind the blinds, a shadow fell. It was enough like an image from an Alfred Hitchcock movie to make him aware of the shadow that wasn't moving. The arm upraised, fist clutching a knife. And his hearing. His hearing! He couldn't find the thundering heartbeat. He twitched, turning, jerking Blair's fingers loose from his arm, but not releasing his grip on the warm fingers.

"Jim. Jim."

He could hear Blair, hear concern through the calm, level tones. But he couldn't spare the concentration to reassure him beyond squeezing his fingers tighter.

Because there was only the one heartbeat, the slushy one. And footsteps on the stairs at the back of the building. And a boiling sound. Hissing and bubbling like something melting. An acrid smell, vaguely familiar, that burned his nose, shriveled his throat. He choked, trying to keep the scent out of his lungs. It was smothering him. He came up for air, gasping and fighting.

Blair was holding him, stroking his back, same soothing pattern, up and down. Saying, "Breathe, Jim. Breathe," over and over again.

Jim tried to stand up. "He's dead. I think he's dead. And someone's coming out the back."

Mulder leapt to his feet before Jim finished.

"Mulder, no!" Skinner made a grab for him as he dashed around the front of the car. The hem of Mulder's coat slipped through his fingers.

Both Simon and Skinner leapt to their feet right behind Mulder.

Jim was slower to get up, Blair supporting him.

Mulder sprinted across the lot, Simon on his heels, gun drawn. Mulder hissed back over his shoulder, "Stay back. Don't shoot him! Whatever you do, don't shoot him!"

Skinner was right behind them, his own gun still in his holster inside his jacket. Shouting, "Banks! No weapons fire."

Jim lurched around the car, deafened by the shouting and the pounding feet on the pavement, but still able to hear the suspect come out the back and jog towards the side of the building. "Mulder! Simon, he's coming this way."

He pushed off Blair, ran towards the building, gun drawn. Blair stayed with him, kept pace, elbow bumping up against his as they ran. As Jim led towards the left side of the building, moving on an intercept course with the footsteps, he huffed, "Get back, Chief. Stay behind me."

As Jim thrust an arm out to cover him, Blair dropped back a step, letting Jim put his body between him and the building, but he didn't slow up.

Mulder was half way across the yard of the building when the man came around the corner. Dressed casually in dark, nondescript clothing, he jogged slowly, head down, hands in his jacket pockets. Doing nothing that looked alarming. Nothing that would draw attention to himself.

Mulder skidded to a halt barely twenty yards from him. He dug into his coat pocket and drew his gun. It glinted silver in the sunlight.

Shocked to see them, the man slowed, reached into his pocket and pulled out something shiny and silver, too.

"Gun!" Simon shouted, dropping to one knee and aiming.

Skinner leapt at him, batting the gun out of his hands. "No shooting!" he roared.

Simon's gun flew off at an angle and thunked onto the ground. The man followed the arc of dull gray with his gaze, giving Jim a good look at his face. It was an unusual face, cruelty and determination showing through the surprise. Square-jawed and heavy-browed. And…weird. A taut, strong face with startlingly square cheekbones, but…soft looking, like there was something malleable underneath. No bones holding his flesh together.

Mulder shifted sideways, moved in on the suspect.

The man flicked his hand, and what Simon had thought was a gun showed bright, sharp edges. The blade flashed in the sunlight, shiny and silver. The man changed direction, peeling off at a right angle, and ran towards the street. Picking up speed. But not so much speed that he couldn't be caught. Still carrying the knife in plain sight, he glanced back over his shoulder, as if daring Mulder to chase him. Taunting him with the dance of switchblade and an insulting pace.

Mulder picked up speed, too. It was plain his long legs could outrun the heavier man's.

"Mulder, don't do it," Skinner shouted, but Mulder ignored him, picking up speed.

Jim turned to go with Mulder, feet slipping on the grass.

Blair grabbed him, spun him around by using the weight of his body and the force of his own speed. "Jim, no!" Took him out of the chase by putting his body between Jim and Mulder.

"Are you out of your mind, Sandburg?" Jim shoved at him, but Blair just shoved back.

"Listen to Walter!"

Skinner went after Mulder, moving faster than Jim would have ever thought such a bulky man could. Skinner caught up to the leaner, leggier Mulder even though he clearly shouldn't have been able to. He tackled the younger man like a linebacker going after a swifter player, launching himself into Mulder and wrapping his arms around his waist.

The suspect turned a corner and ran out of sight.

Mulder hit the ground at full speed, his "Oof!" audible even to someone without enhanced hearing. Even though he was gasping, trying to get air back into his deflated lungs, he tried to roll, to keep going. But he couldn't, not with 200 pounds of Skinner wrapped around him. On top of him. He cursed and struck out.

Skinner's head snapped back with the impact of an elbow. The scent of blood blossomed in the air. But he didn't let go. He simply crawled up Mulder and let his weight pin the smaller man to the dirt. "Stop it, Agent Mulder! Stop it!"

Blair started towards the two men at a trot, and Jim followed him. Might as well have a ringside seat for the fight since there wasn't going to be an arrest. A couple of streets over, the suspect had jumped into a car, left a stripe of rubber on the pavement, and was out of hearing now.

But Jim didn't even get a good fight. By the time he walked the few yards, Skinner's steely gaze had burned through Mulder's rage. He went limp so quickly it was like he'd passed out. Everything about him gave up, except for his mouth. That remained pursed with fury.

"Are you through?" Skinner asked him, his voice eerily back to normal despite his obvious anger and the fifty-yard dash.

"I could have caught him." Mulder held his rage in check so tightly that his teeth grated together, muscles twitching as he struggled not to struggle. "I could have stopped him. You let him get away."

Skinner's mouth drew down into a straight, silent line, and he rocked back off his agent. He stood, swiped the back of his hand across his mouth. It came away smeared with blood. He offered his other hand to help Mulder up.

Mulder reached up for Jim instead, ignoring the hand that was already there. He gripped Jim's wrist, pulled himself up, and faced Skinner, toe to toe with him, still breathing jerkily,

Skinner refused to be baited, and he looked away first, moving smoothly over to pick up whatever he had knocked from Mulder's hand when he tackled him. He brought it back, offered it to the younger man like it was a peace offering. He kept it wrapped in his fist, palm down, so Jim couldn't see what the thing was.

Jim glanced at Blair and found him glaring at Mulder like he wanted to shake him.

Sulky, but somehow mollified by the exchange, Mulder took the thing from Skinner and pocketed it quickly.

Skinner's lower lip was puffy, blood oozing out. He pulled a folded square of handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his hand. Wiped his lip. Totally casual, as if a subordinate bloodying his lip was an everyday occurrence.

"Would one of you care to fill me in on what the hell just happened?" Simon didn't roar. He didn't even sound angry.

Jim, with Blair right behind him, wisely took a comical step away from their boss. Simon pissed off to the point of calm was better given a wide berth.

Mulder looked at Simon. At Jim. At Blair, almost plastered to his side. "I think explanations are AD Skinner's domain," he said silkily. He turned towards the apartment building. "It's lunch time. I'm hungry. Let's get this over with."

Skinner watched him walk away. Shrugged as if dismissing him and turned back to Simon. "Agent Mulder tracked down a man who fit the description of the men who are missing. When we arrived here, there was no sign of the man. Only an empty apartment with similar chemical residue to what you've found at the other scenes. I think when your people check, you're going to find you have another missing person. And, of course, you could write up evidence of foul play this time, since a man was seen running from the building and didn't halt when ordered to do so." Bloodied handkerchief in hand, he trudged off after Mulder.

"Wait a minute." Simon hurried after Skinner, caught his shoulder to make him stop. "You're going to have to do better than that."

Skinner halted and looked balefully at the fingers splayed across his shoulder, like he was willing flames to swallow Simon's hand.

Blair chuckled under his breath.

Jim glared at him. "What's so fucking funny about this, Sandburg?"

Before any of them could say more, the back-up Simon had called came wheeling into the neighborhood. Patrol cars and unmarked vehicles, officers piling out with guns drawn, moving into position to surround the building.

Simon moved away from Skinner to intercept. "It's okay, people. It's all over."

Joel Taggart jogged up to Simon, holstering his weapon. "You said it was a possible hostage or kidnapping, Simon?"

"Yeah." Simon chomped down on his cigar hard enough to bite the tip off it. He looked back at Skinner, still standing where he'd stopped him. At Jim and Blair beside him. At Mulder, waiting at the door of the building. "The apartment's empty. Same scenario as the other missing persons cases. Let's get Forensics in here to take over."

He spat the piece of cigar out on the ground as if it tasted bad, but Jim had the feeling that tobacco wasn't the only bad taste he had in his mouth. "And let's get these people out of here before they trample every piece of evidence we have."

In the sparsely furnished apartment, there was another greasy green-black stain, this one oblong and rounded at the corners. Jim wrinkled his nose at it, and Mulder murmured, "Don't breathe it." Then Forensics arrived and shooed them back outside, where they stood on the sidewalk.

Mulder said again, "I'm hungry."

Simon, standing in the middle of the yard, motioned them away. "Go on. Get out of here. I'll sort this out."

Jim hung back. "You sure, Simon?"

"Yeah. Sure. That's why they pay me the big bucks. Take those two to lunch, then bring them down to the station for a statement. You're on babysitting duty with them until they leave town. I'll see who I can spring to watch the hotel tonight. Maybe Rafe or Brown."

Jim grimaced. Great. Just what he wanted, to spend lots of time around Walter Skinner. "Thanks, Simon. I won't forget this one." He motioned for Blair.

Simon caught his arm as he turned away. "And see if you can get at anything like the real story. Even it it's off the record."

In less than thirty minutes, they were standing in the doorway of a popular, neighborhood pub where he and Blair frequently ate lunch. The worst of the lunch rush was over, leaving littered tables and overflowing trash cans and remnants of cigarette smoke lingering near the back of the room.

Jim sneezed and Blair touched him before pointing to a booth in the corner. "Over there." His fingers slid from Jim's arm to Skinner's. "You sit down. I'll get a wet cloth for your mouth."

Jim pointed towards the bar, and Blair nodded his understanding before following Skinner, who moved automatically in the direction Blair pointed.

Jim shook his head. If he'd been in a better mood, he would have laughed at the way the big, stern, scowling Assistant Director of the FBI automatically did what Blair told him, without protest or complaint. Blair was definitely the one in control in that relationship, and that thought sent a little squiggle of tension over him. It might not be so bad, to have Blair be in charge.

Mulder trailed along behind him.

"We always order at the bar. It's faster." Jim explained. "The food's good, but the service sucks this time of day." Especially on a day like today, when a beer was definitely in order even if he was technically on duty.

"Hey, Detective," the bartender greeted him. He glanced around, looking for Blair. "Tea or juice?"

"Four beers. It's been a long morning."

"Make it three and a scotch on the rocks," Mulder corrected. He grinned and jerked his thumb in Skinner's direction. "He'll be less likely to stab me with a salad fork if we soften him up a bit."

Jim looked back over his shoulder at the u-shaped booth where Blair had seated Skinner and was dabbing at his split lip with a paper napkin. "I don't think you have to worry. He seems pretty concerned about keeping you healthy."

Mulder made a rude sound. "Too much paperwork to fill out if I get hurt."

Jim had no trouble sifting through the sarcasm to find the longing underneath. His own gut churned with it so often lately. "I've got something I want you to read. Might change your mind about that."

"You don't have to do that," Skinner protested. But he had a hand braced lightly on Blair's waist, and he didn't make any move to stop Blair's fussing.

Jim leaned over and peered down into the beer cooler beneath the bar. "Hey, you still got that cold pack stuck away in here?"

The bartender righted an empty glass on the bar. "Hell, no. Damn thing leaked blue shit all over my ice last week." He peered at Blair ministering to Skinner. "Ice in a cloth do you?" He fished out three beers and slid them over next to the glass.

Condensation formed on the brown bottles almost immediately. Cool, wet air ghosted across Jim's knuckles. "That'll do."

While the bartender went into the back for a clean cloth, Jim said casually, "You gonna show me whatever that is in your pocket?"

Mulder grinned and waggled an eyebrow at him. "You mean my pickle, Detective Ellison? You've already seen it, but I'd be happy to show it to you again." When Jim flushed, Mulder laughed outright. The devilish grin faded a bit, overshadowed by calculation. "You gonna tell me how you could hear what was going down in that apartment from more than a block away?"

Jim's eyes narrowed, his expression just as calculated. "We could talk," he agreed. When Mulder just waited, he peered at him. Jim couldn't believe he was contemplating telling the truth to a government Suit. But he'd held the man while he came. Slept in his arms. Mulder trusted him, and his intuition told him that was a rare thing. "Sandburg calls it a genetic advantage. Just like people who work for perfume or coffee companies. Only with me, it's my hearing, and it's a lot more sensitive. He's helping me learn to control it. Doing tests and stuff."

"Just your hearing, huh? And you're not going to mention the fact that you choked on whatever it was you were smelling while you were listening back there? Or that you could see into Skinner's room so well you almost passed out."

Jim shivered with that particular memory. "What's that shiny silver thing in your pocket that's not a pickle?" he countered.

Mulder reached into his pocket, then carefully shifted so that his coat was hanging open, screening his hand from Skinner and Blair and the other people in the room. Keeping his hand below bar level, he unfolded his long fingers.

The object looked fairly innocuous. If he hadn't seen Mulder opt for it instead of a gun, hadn't seen Skinner let a suspect get away because he was menacing Mulder with something similar, Jim would have thought it was nothing. An extra long lipstick case, or a short cigar case.

Then Mulder shifted it carefully in his palm, touched it a certain way. The thing made a strange, hissing sound and, faster than Jim's sight could follow, shot out an evil looking blade. Shiny and cold and rounded, but still sharp as a razor. "You stab it into the base of the brain," Mulder said, and he made an abbreviated, stabbing, slashing movement with it.

"Instead of shooting?" Jim guessed.

Mulder turned the thing in his palm once, staring at it as if it had the power to hypnotize. "Yeah. If you think you've run across this guy again. Or even somebody who looks different, but you think it might be him…" He made that gesture again. Stabbing at an unseen assailant.

Jim noted the movement, out and upwards, and Mulder's choice of words. Somebody who looks different. "I'd know him no matter what he looks like. His face was…weird. Almost like he had no bones."

Mulder stared at him, pupils dilating, skin flushing. The scent that rolled off him was excited, jittery, eager. "You could see that?" As if realizing he'd given too much away, Mulder reined in his enthusiasm. He passed his fingers over the smooth cylinder again, and the blade disappeared in a reverse hiss. "Genetic advantage, huh? Like people who work for perfume companies, only with you, it's hearing. And maybe smell. Maybe sight, too. So what else have you got that's genetically enhanced?" There was no double entendre this time. Just wired, bright-eyed curiosity.

"What happens if you shoot him?"

Mulder tried to stare him down, then gave a combination grimace-shrug-smile when he realized he'd lost. He dropped the cylinder back into his pocket. "That chemical residue…if you stab or shoot into the base of the brain, you get an icky spot on the carpet. If you shoot, or stab, or puncture anywhere else on the body… Well, you won't live to tell anybody about it. What comes out is toxic."

A chill raced down Jim's spine. Now it made sense, the way Skinner had grabbed Simon to keep him from firing, the way he'd tackled Mulder and seemed willing to lie there on him until the guy was long gone. "What is he?! What is he killing?" he rasped.

The bartender came back with a cloth filled with ice, then started opening their bottles and pouring the scotch. "You guys want lunch?"

His appetite was long gone, but Jim nodded, not taking his gaze from Mulder. Almost afraid that if he looked away, the man would go up in smoke. Would disappear before his eyes and he'd wake up to discover this had all been a weird dream. Hell, it already was a dream, mixed of equal parts erotic, weird and now horror. All that was missing was a clown juggling raw eggs, or some equally weird dream thing. "Long as it's not rabbit food."

The bartender, long a witness to Jim and Blair's disagreements over what constituted healthy lunch fare, grinned. "Open faced roast beef with gravy and french fries."

Blair would love it. And he'd grumble the whole time about how unhealthy it was, stealing fries off his plate as he did. "That's fine. What about you? Will Skinner eat that?"

Mulder said, "Sounds good," and gathered up the three beers.

Jim stopped him. "Who's Jeremiah Smith? Or maybe I should ask, who are Jeremiah Smith?"

Mulder's eyes bugged comically. "Where did you hear that name?"

Jim shrugged. "Around. The information I got was that there were several Jeremiah Smiths, one who lived through being shot dead in front of witnesses. Then he disappeared into thin air. Just like the others with the same face. You were investigating, and a cop was killed in the course of the investigation."

"Sounds like you know a lot already," Mulder said dryly. He juggled the three bottles between his fingers, holding them out so the condensation wouldn't drip on his coat.

"I could dig deeper and get more. Or you could just save me the time and tell me."

Mulder shook his head. "You wouldn't believe me."

"And I'm supposed to believe what you've already told me?"

Mulder balanced the bottles between his long fingers and stopped clinking them together. "And I'm supposed to believe you have genetically enhanced senses even though you don't work for a perfume company?"

But Jim knew Mulder well enough now to recognize that Mulder really did believe it. He was the only person, other than Blair, who'd believed without skepticism. And taken delight in it. He'd called Jim to back him up when he didn't even trust his own boss. Jim picked up Skinner's drink and the ice pack. Automatically, he darted a glance around the room. The only suspicious activity was Skinner and his partner, who had their heads so close together it was obvious they were telling secrets.

"Hey, hold up." He detained Mulder so he'd have time to hear what Skinner was saying. "Where do I get one of those ice picks?"

Mulder grimaced, pain flitting across his face. "You have to inherit it."

Jim's attention was jerked back from Blair. "What?" But Mulder had already turned away. And Blair looked so miserable, shoulders hunched, head down, fingers shredding the napkin he'd used to clean Skinner's lip. Jim caught Mulder's arm again, slowing him so he could listen.

Skinner was intense and focused, not holding back despite the swollen lip. //"—saw what happened out there, and as bad as it was, you're only seeing the surface."//

//"So tell us what's going on. You think you make us any safer by keeping us in the dark?"//

//"Never!"// Skinner hissed it so fiercely, Jim didn't need enhanced hearing. //"I never want you involved in this. I'll walk away from here and never see you again if that's what it takes. I'll do whatever it takes to get Jim off this case. Even if it means hurting him. You can't let him follow Mulder. Mulder's the Pied Piper, and he'll march you right into the sea."//

//"You follow him."//

//"Yeah, and I spend most of my time trying not to drown."//

Blair swallowed, whispered, //"What are you so afraid of?"//

Skinner leaned closer to Blair, forehead almost touching his. //"I'm afraid he'll get you killed. Or something…worse. Mulder's obsessed, Blair. Mulder's on a crusade. And he's got blinders on. He doesn't even think of his own safety. He won't think of Jim's. Or yours."//

Skinner covered Blair's fingers with his hand, stopping the shredding. //"I watched you out there, with him. I haven't figured out what's going on, but I can see how it is with you two. But staying behind him won't save you against this. I've watched Mulder almost go down more times than I want to think about, and I—"//

Skinner chopped off his words abruptly as Mulder clinked the bottles down on the table and slid into the booth. He slid a beer over in front of Blair, left one for Jim, took a long pull off his own, staring at Skinner down the length of the bottle, as if daring him to comment.

Jim stopped when his knees bumped the end of the leather seat right beside Skinner. He put the glass down in front of him. He could feel the warmth of Skinner's thigh through his slacks. The other man's scent, of blood and grass stain and fear, was strange against the bar’s background of leather and stale booze and frying food. "What's going on?"

Blair looked up at him, his eyes pinched and unhappy. "Walter thinks we should walk away from this case. I was telling him there's no way you'd do that."

Jim looked at Blair, at his wide-stretched, concerned eyes. At the determined, stony line of Skinner's jaw.

Mulder's bizarre half-explanations baffled him. What Mulder wouldn't say chilled him. Skinner's certainty that following Mulder would put them in danger made him feel as if the doors had been left open and a blizzard had swept through the room. He still wasn't sure he trusted the man, but he trusted Skinner's concern for Blair.

Most of the time, he managed to convince himself he could protect Blair. But it scared him more than anything ever had, knowing that Blair always chose to stay beside him, even at the risk of his own safety. Of his own happiness. He had no clue how to live up to that.

"The problem with backing off is that this isn't over. There are still more…" He hesitated. Still more what? "…men with this particular face out there. You're asking me to walk away and let them be killed." He glanced at Mulder for confirmation.

Mulder took another pull off his beer and nodded, defying Skinner's unspoken order to keep quiet. "Yes, there are more. I could have ended it all right there this afternoon if I hadn't been stopped. I might even have gotten some answers for a change."

He stared at Skinner with such pain, such hopeless anger, that Jim could feel it, a living despair with more weight than smoke, like rough wool on his flesh.

"He was trying to keep you safe," Blair said quietly.

Mulder's head jerked around. The despair was taken up by something else, something that vibrated and quivered and wanted.

It was too raw, too naked for Skinner to bear, and he thumped the table angrily, making it easy for Mulder to back away. "Damn it, Mulder, you know it's too late. And too risky. Maybe you've forgotten what I've risked, and what Scully's risked, but I haven't. I won't let you put these men at risk, too."

Skinner glared at him, and Mulder stared right back, mule stubborn, and, again, it was Skinner who relented. Who softened. "If there are others, he'll find them before we do. He already know where they are. They'll be dead before sundown, if they're not already. You can't make a difference here. And the risks are too great."

But Mulder couldn't back down. He turned his pleading gaze on Jim. Almost manic, fervid hope spilling out.

Jim was suddenly tired. Too tired to bear the weight of Blair's belief in Skinner and Mulder's belief in…whatever it was he was chasing. The only thing that made sense to him at the moment was the stony, dogged determination of Skinner.

Mulder must have spent most of his life convincing himself that he could make a difference. Otherwise, how did he keep going? Risking everything… He glanced at Blair. Was Mulder oblivious that people chose to follow him at the risk of their own safety, or did what he knew make the risk worth it? Jim wasn't sure he wanted to know. Maybe there was something to be said for that need to know bureaucratic Suit policy after all.

Jim nudged Skinner with his knee, forcing him to slide further into the booth. Blair had to slide around the corner, to the end of the table, to make room. Jim caught Skinner's square jaw in his fingers, tilted his face back so he could see the bruise. The cut was minor, mostly inside the lip, and though his lip was puffy at one corner, he could tell it would be gone by morning. Nevertheless, he touched the ice pack to Skinner's face, shifting it gently until it covered the bruise.

The other man's skin was smooth beneath his fingers. Warm and much softer than he'd expected. Softer even than Mulder's pretty skin. 

He slid his fingers along Skinner's jaw, down his neck, enjoying the tiny shiver that went through Skinner as his fingers rested against his pulse. He couldn't stop his gaze from sliding to Blair, then back to Skinner. Aping one of those significant glances Skinner so enjoyed. "I'll talk to Simon. See what I can do."

Mulder's mouth tightened down, betrayal plain in his expression.

In Skinner's, there was only relief. Skinner's fingers lingered on Jim's a moment as he took over control of the ice pack.

 

*****

 

Jim stared into the refrigerator, waiting for something edible to leap into his hands. The last few days seemed like a ragged, surreal voyage from one meal to the next, with a few notable side trips in between.

It had been hours since the last strange stop on the meal journey. Lunch. Eating roast beef so tender he didn't even need a knife while his knee touched Skinner's and his elbow brushed the other man's arm.

Trying to ease the tension and get everything back on an even keel, Blair had predictably grumbled about cholesterol and high blood pressure and told outrageous stories about the things he'd eaten while on digs. He'd alternated between concern and elation, beaming every time Jim and Skinner made eye contact, like a kid whose two best friends have just decided to like each other.

Mulder had been more interested in their body contact, making the transition from glowering to sulking to watching the slow touch of their bodies with hot, knowing eyes. Jim sat beside Skinner, glowing like banked coals from the feel of his muscular body, thinking there were lots of things he'd rather have for lunch than roast beef. Like Skinner. Or Blair. Or both of them. Or all of them.

He felt like a huge, exposed nerve ending. Walking hormones. Switched to receive, current flowing, skin so sensitive he would go up in smoke if somebody just touched him. Stroke him… Must be the adrenaline rush of danger. Maybe his adrenaline switch was stuck open. There was some kind of weird killer loose in his city, and all he could think about was how many sweating, heaving bodies he could fit into his bed.

While the lunch had seemed hours long, the journey back to the station had seemed days long. Blair rode with him, and told him how glad he was that Jim was beginning to trust Skinner.

Jim bit his tongue to keep from telling him that he didn't trust Skinner so much as he really wanted to put Skinner on his hands and knees and fuck him until they both came, screaming. But what he'd like to do even more was put Skinner and Mulder on a plane to another country and never hear from them again. And that wasn't really the root of the problem at all, was it? Because it wasn't really Skinner he wanted, panting and begging and coming, under him. And knowing that, acknowledging it to himself, was like peeling back his skin and leaving his flesh and nerves and bones open to the air.

Jim hadn't said any of those things during the ride. Clutching the wheel, watching the road with a concentration he hadn't felt, he had asked Blair about something that had been digging at him, like a low-grade itch, since that overheard conversation in the bar. "Skinner talked about being married…?"

Blair glanced at him, actually pierced him with the directness of his gaze, but didn't comment on his knowledge. Didn't bother to pretend that he didn't understand what Jim was asking. "He was separated from his wife when I met him. They still saw each other, but they had a lot of issues. He didn't think they could work it through, and she didn't seem to want to. But then when he got the transfer back to DC, she wanted to go with him. She wanted to try again."

Jim clutched the wheel tighter. He couldn't place the tone in Blair's voice, couldn't decide if he sounded sad or resigned or just completely okay with the whole thing.

Blair just smiled at him, tapped his shoulder and continued in that calm voice. "He was married to Sharon a lot longer than he was with me, Jim. But Walter never lied to me. I knew he wanted the chance to work it out. I knew from the beginning he didn't want a divorce. I knew the score."

There was really nothing Jim could say to that, because he didn't understand it, and he really didn't believe it. He'd seen the affection between them, the laughter, the lust. The love. Skinner made Blair's heart race just by walking into the room. And in Blair's presence, Skinner became someone Jim suspected very few people had been privileged to see. Maybe if Skinner's wife had been able to see that man, she would have stayed.

Just when he thought he might actually begin to like Skinner, might actually understand him, something popped up to show how really alien the guy was. How could anyone who had what Skinner obviously had with Blair give it up?

Jim had gone back to work and talked to Simon just like he promised. Made sure he had Skinner's and Mulder's statements, useless though they were. And he'd tried not to think as Blair left the station with Skinner for another night.

And hours later, he still felt raw and exposed. And his stomach told him it was time for another stop on the meal train, but he didn't see anything in the refrigerator that even tempted him. He should have stayed on duty and let Rafe go home, except that he couldn't stand the thought of sitting outside the hotel, knowing that Skinner and Blair were upstairs in bed together.

Cold air swirled around his ankles. The scent of lettuce, just a day or so from going bad, seeped out of the crisper. Droplets of water formed on Blair's bottled water. The only thing the least bit appealing was the lone bottle of beer, hidden in the corner behind Blair's pineapple. It was Blair's, too. And one bottle of beer wasn't enough to unknot his brain or paint his skin back onto his flesh.

A sigh escaped into the refrigerator and turned foggy, and he slammed the door. Everything in the damned thing was Blair's anyway. Just like everything in the whole place was Blair's. He'd had a couch and a television and a bed and sheets until Blair came along. And towels that felt like they were abrading his newly awakened skin. He'd go back to sandpaper towels again, gladly, if things could just go back to the way they were a week ago. Before he knew all this shit about Blair, and about himself. Before he started wanting to hear mermaids sing.

On the first floor, the elevator wheezed to life, and he stretched his hearing to discover its occupant was Blair. That was a surprise. For a second, he was afraid that something was wrong, but Blair's pulse hummed along normally. And while his footsteps along the hallway weren't exactly bouncy, but they were calm and steady.

Blair came in the door, dropped his keys, slipped his jacket off and hung it on the rack. "Hey, Jim."

All everyday occurrences, so damned normal they made Jim's throat hurt. "Hey, Chief. I didn't expect to see you tonight."

Blair strolled over to the kitchen island. Took up his place opposite Jim where he'd stood so many times when they were discussing cases, problems, life. "Walter was afraid Mulder would take off by himself if he didn't stay with him. And I thought they needed some time to, you know, patch things up."

Though Blair was standing across from him, he still hadn't really made eye contact. His gaze swept the room, the floor, the windows. "I thought maybe we did, too. Need some time to talk, I mean." He tapped his knuckles on the countertop, brushed a speck of something off the immaculate surface.

Jim's stomach collapsed, slopped back against his spine. What if Blair had decided to go with Skinner? What if he'd decided to take that chance that had been snatched away from him years ago? Maybe if he'd eaten something earlier, there would have been something in there to shore up his gut. Jim worried his own imaginary speck of dust. "Yeah? What about?"

"Oh, nothing in particular. Just…haven't seen much of you the last couple of days. And you've seemed kind of…tense."

Jim had the grace to flush; the common sense to fear that, sooner or later, Blair was going to figure out what he'd done, what he knew. What he felt. It made it easy to be gracious. Guilt always made it easier to be gracious. "Oh. Well, you've been busy. And this case hasn't been easy."

"Yeah. Yeah." The second word sounded a little lighter than the first, and finally, Blair raised his chin. Raised his eyes and met Jim's gaze.

Jim couldn't believe he'd spent over three years looking at this man and never looked at him. Never really noticed how beautiful he was, how blue his eyes were and how strong his hands were and how…enticing that mouth was. He'd noticed, plenty of times, how attractive other people thought Blair was. He'd thought it himself, but it was always an observational thing. Noticing, but not noticing.

"Hey, have you eaten?" Blair opened the refrigerator and peered in.

"Not yet."

That nearly-gone lettuce smell drifted out again just as Blair said, "How about a salad?"

"That lettuce is pretty ripe, Chief."

Blair dug down in the crisper, pulled out the head of lettuce and wrinkled his nose. "Yeah, you're right." He tossed it into the trash can. He dug back in and came out with a plastic container. "My romaine is still good, though. How about that?"

Story of his life. His lettuce was gray-brown and rank, but Blair had good lettuce to share. "Okay."

Blair pulled more salad fixings from the refrigerator, radishes and carrots and one of those organic cucumbers that always looked like they were a couple of days past prime, and started rolling up his sleeves. The flexing of his arms, the shift and sway of his ass in those tight jeans was way too interesting.

Jim didn't think he would last, standing there so close, without doing something really stupid. Like grabbing Blair. Like telling him… He wasn't sure what comprised really stupid at this stage. He just had the feeling he was about to do it. "I'm going to grab a shower." He jerked his thumb in the direction of the bathroom even though Blair had his back turned. "If you want to hold up on that until I'm finished, I'll help."

Blair waved towards the bathroom. "Go on. I've got it."

It was a relief to step into the tiny room and close the door, to stand in the dark, eyes closed so there wasn't even a possibility of compensating.

Okay, he could do this. He'd wanted a return to normalcy, and there was Blair out there, puttering around in the kitchen and slamming doors and muttering as he looked for the salad spice. Just like dozens of other evenings. They would eat, and clean up, and maybe watch the cable news. Lose themselves in some other country's problems for a while. He could do this. If he could just get his skin to stop burning and tingling, he could manage.

He stripped off his clothes and climbed into the shower, adjusted the temperature up as hot as he could stand it. Turned the spray adjustment to soft and fizzy.

Blair chose the shower massager because it had a variety of adjustments, and he'd thought that when Jim's senses were acting up, some of the lighter ones would relax him. Good instinct, even though it worked in a way Jim was sure Blair hadn't intended. On a couple of the really softer settings, if he got the temperature just right and the angle just right, the play of water felt like fingers dancing over his skin.

And he had the temperature just right. All he was lacking was the angle. The water was soft and fizzy down his back. Like standing in a wash of champagne bubbles. He spread his legs as wide as he could, thrust his ass back to let the water cascade between his thighs. Damn! That felt like he was dipping his balls into champagne, and maybe there was something to be said for not having the angle just right. For just…going with the flow…

He sighed jerkily and leaned down a little further, bracing a forearm on the wall. His cock was standing up, pink from the heat, and hard and ready. A couple of strokes was all he needed. He was so on edge…just a couple, and then he would be able to manage normal, for a while anyway.

But it felt so good, he couldn't resist just drawing it out a little. Teasing a bit. Dragging his fingers along the underside of his cock without tightening them. Aware of every whorl of his fingerprints. Every bubble in the water. Aware of Blair, normal and working in their kitchen. Aware of how Blair looked naked. Back arched. Cock curving back towards his belly.

It was a good thing he held off. If he hadn't, Blair would have walked in just as he started coming, and there wouldn't have been anything he could do but shudder and moan and paint the tile with his semen. As it was, Blair slammed his fist into the door in a caricature of knocking, then pushed it open without waiting. He stepped into the steamy room in a bubble of clear, cool air.

Jim barely had time to wheel away. To let go of his cock and slap his hand onto the wall. Damned clear shower curtain! Another of Blair's bright ideas, this one to make the small shower seem less claustrophobic.

He was nakedly aware of the view Blair had. Of the water was still spilling down his back, tickling the backs of his thighs, teasing his balls. He gulped in a couple of breaths, willed his erection to subside. As usual, it ignored him. It ignored him and gave all its attention to Blair. To his elevated heartbeat and his musky, still slightly Skinner-like scent.

"How about a little privacy here, Sandburg?"

"Funny you should choose that word, Jim."

There was something strange with Blair's voice. Low, unnaturally quiet, but almost quavering, vibrating on a note that his cock felt. Jim twisted to look over his shoulder.

Blair was standing just inside the partially closed door.

With a peculiar, unexpected pang of disappointment, Jim noted that Blair wasn't even looking at him. Despite how he was standing, with his palms flat on the wall like a perp about to be searched, with his legs spread like a whore about to be taken. One step to the left and Blair could see every inch of his swollen cock, but Blair wasn't even looking.

He was looking down, long sweep of hair hiding his face. Staring at the book in his hands.

Shit! Oh, hell… He'd forgotten the book. The damned book of poetry over which he'd spent a maudlin evening. That took some of the wind out of his sails. His cock wilted respectably enough that he could turn. He cupped his hands under the spray, pretending to direct it onto his face while he viciously twisted the silky sex spray to needle sharp. "What is it, Chief? You're freezing me here."

Blair held the book up. "I think you'd better come out of there, Jim. We need to talk." He turned on his heel and went back out the door, leaving it wide open. "Now."

It was another of those moments when his body obeyed the strength in that voice as if Jim was a puppet and Blair had jerked his strings. He'd had a lot of those lately. He rinsed, dried himself and wrapped a towel around his waist.

Blair was waiting for him at the end of the hall, arms crossed. The book lay on the dining table, open to the page Jim had marked. Teach me to hear mermaid's singing, or to keep off envy's stinging, and find what wind serves to advance an honest mind.

Shit…

"You were listening."

Jim tried to step around him, escape upstairs with the excuse of getting dressed, but Blair sidestepped with him, blocking his path.

He'd spent two days wondering what he was going to say and hadn't thought of one thing. He'd thought, maybe, when it came down to it, when he was Blair was staring him in the face, something would come to him. It didn't.

"Don't you even think about lying to me about this, Jim. There's not enough coincidence in the world to explain this."

"I wasn't trying to think of a lie, Chief. Just…how to explain."

"Explain?! You eavesdropped on me. You-you-you…" Blair spluttered to a stop. "You spied on me when I was—" He waved his arms in the air. "Doing that. What'd you do, Jim? Follow me back to the hotel? Stand out in the hall and listen to us fuck?"

And, oh, shit!, that was an angle he hadn't considered. He'd been so focused on why, he'd never thought of explaining how he'd done it, in Mulder's room. In Mulder's bed. "That's need to know, Chief," he said lightly. "I'd rather not say."

His attempt at a joke didn't impress Blair. "Rather not say? You eavesdropped on me! You'd better say."

A flair of something—fury, agony, fire—jittered in his stomach. It felt almost like the panicked scream that had thrashed in his belly when he'd thought he was going to drown in the dark, alone, in Mulder's room. His jaw clamped down so tight he had to force it to move. "There's nothing to say, Sandburg."

Blair pushed him, hand flat on his chest, an oval heat stamp on his skin.

He took a step back, then another.

"Don't you do that to me, Jim. Don't you dare try to shut down and pull that Ellison jaw clench on me. There better be something to say, and it better be something that makes me understand this, or I'm outta here."

Jim tried to bristle, but he couldn't manage the faux indignation that normally worked so well. Couldn't turn his back. There'd been a time, before Blair, when walking away had been so much simpler, so much easier to do. He sighed. "I was with Mulder and things just got out of hand. I know it was a shitty thing to do. And I'm… I'm…"

He stopped, because the word that should come next was caught in his throat. Words didn't come easy to him. And that last word was hardest of all when it was for real. People said it everyday, in the line at the supermarket and to strangers on the street. And parents said it to kids when everything was coming apart at the seams, and they didn't really mean it. All the seams popped anyway. The word didn't make any difference. It didn't make the world better when the seams popped and blood spilled out onto the floor. But he wanted to make a difference. He had to make a difference this time.

"I'm sorry, Chief." And then, words used up and courage spent, he managed to turn away, but he still couldn't walk away.

A warm hand touched him very gently. Not moving, fingertips just fitting to the slats of his ribs. His skin was cool from the shower, still a little damp, and Blair's palm radiated warmth all along his side.

"Okay," Blair said, very slowly, very deliberately. "I'm calm. I'm calm about this. Just…take it from the top. Make me understand."

He darted a glance at Blair and quickly looked away. Mistake. Big mistake, looking at those blue, blue eyes. Like drowning in topaz. It would be easier if Blair stayed angry, kept his arms crossed and his fists balled, his head moving, hair flying around his head like it was full of static electricity. Blair's anger, the panic it generated, had given him words. Now he had to concentrate. To think about what to say. Where to start.

He took a deep breath, Blair's hand following the rise and fall of his ribs. "On the sidewalk, that night outside the restaurant, after you walked away, Mulder told me where his room was. And he seemed to be making a big deal out of the fact that it was next door to Skinner's. I couldn't figure out if he coming on to me, or trying to tell me something about Skinner. Warn me, maybe. And I thought, I'd just walk down the hall. Walk past Skinner's room and check him out before you got there. But then you came up, and when he opened the door, I saw how he looked at you. I knew you'd be okay with him. Then Mulder opened his door, and he invited me in. And it just…got out of hand. I didn't mean to keep listening."

In the ensuing silence, Jim drew in another deep, deep breath. It inflated his lungs and it inflated his stomach, peeling it up off his spine and settling it back down where it belonged. And, god, he felt better. He felt so much better. Ten pounds lighter, getting all those words out. Washed clean, confessing. That peeled, raw feeling disappeared, replaced a tingling awareness as if every hair on his body was standing up and his skin was all new.

He could feel Blair, every curve and shadow and muscle, a heat portrait etched across his back and wrapped around his ribs. Soaking into his flesh.

"So, you and Mulder were…" Blair made a vague gesture with his hand. Suggestive, but nothing like his usual punch with the fist.

Was it possible that he sounded a little jealous? A little breathless? Jim didn't dare risk another glance at him to find out. There was enough exhilaration singing in his blood without adding the impact of those eyes. "Yes. And it just—"

"Got out of hand. Yeah, I got that part. But if you knew I was okay, and you were there to be with Mulder, why'd you listen in the first place?"

Jim closed his eyes, but it didn't shut out the memory. That sliver of light drawing him like a magnet. Skinner's hands, cupping Blair's ass, moving down his chest. "The connecting door was open. I—we saw you. The two of you together. I closed the door, but…I couldn't close off the sound."

Just like he couldn't close off the images now. Blair naked and aroused. Just like he couldn't stop wanting to be the one make Blair look like that. He sucked in a deep, ragged breath, tried to stay in the present when his body wanted the past, wanted…more. His cock, tense and angry and unrelieved, thickened. Swelled up against the rough terrycloth, threatening to tug the towel free. . Trying not to draw attention the way his cock was pushing at the towel, he caught the tucked edge and pressed it against his hip.

"I should be so pissed at you, Jim," Blair said finally, his voice quiet. Intense.

Should be… The implication ghosted across Jim's arm, word tendrils across his back. Blair's fingers flexed, digging into his spine, and Jim's mouth went suddenly dry, tongue sticking to his teeth.

Blair's fingers walked down the bumps in his spine. His voice dropped another octave. "I should be so pissed at you, but all I can think of is you listening to me and getting so turned on you couldn't stop. That's what happened, isn't it?" The fingers reached his towel, teased there a moment, half on his skin, half on cloth. "Isn't it?"

Jim barely pushed the word out, and it sounded rusty and awkward. "Yes."

Then Blair tugged, and the edges came lose. Jim let the towel slip through his fingers, let Blair take it. Damp cotton brushed against his hip, then Blair let the towel drop. Cold air swirled around his thighs, his balls.

Blair's hand teased across his hip. His voice teased through Jim's mind. "You watched us, and you listened to us." Blair leaned in, resting his hand on Jim's hip, just at the curve of his ass. Whispered the last into his ear. "And it makes me so hot to think about you with Mulder. Listening to me."

Jim shuddered and flushed, swaths of heat up his belly and his neck and his face.

Blair caught his arm and turned him gently, pushed him back into the refrigerator. And, god, that was cold against his back, his ass. His nerves all shouted at the same time, screeched in shock and pleasure.

"Did you like listening to me fuck?" Blair rested his palms on the refrigerator, framing his head. Trapping him in place. Blair leaned in again, crowded in on him until he had no personal space, no air left to breathe. But Blair didn't touch him anywhere. Not even the erection straining so shamelessly out from his body.

Blair didn't even glance at his cock. His gaze slid over the planes of Jim's face, eyes narrowed and dangerous and filled with laughter, as if he knew how maddening it was to be so naked, so close, without being touched.

"You like hearing me fuck?" Blair repeated. He slid his palm down Jim's body, skimming shoulder and nipple and hip. Fingers traced the length of his cock, menacing, promising, but not touching. Ghosting warmth across his skin. "Looks like you'd like to do more than just listen."

Jim flushed hot all over, skin burning, no more gentle streaks of warmth. Just flame and bone and muscle that wanted to go in twenty different directions. Shift towards Blair's hands and lean into his mouth, and arch towards the bulge in his jeans. Sink to his knees and roll over on his back. Spread his legs. "Yeah, I'd like that."

It was a rough, husky understatement, with his knees starting to give way and his cock begging to be stroked and his spine jittering like he was on speed, but apparently, it was enough.

Blair pressed in on him, finally touching from shoulder to knee. Abrading his skin with denim and dragging flannel across his nipples. Polishing the tip of his cock with the smooth, body warmed metal of his belt buckle.

Blair breathed across his collarbone, "You know what I did. Tell me what you did."

Jim pressed back harder into the door of the refrigerator, trying to soak up the chill, to cool the heat. He was willing to confess every sin on his soul if Blair would just stay there, against him, talking over him. Branding words into his throat. "Everything you did," he said hoarsely. "Mulder wanted me to…do what you were doing to Skinner."

Blair froze, fingers barely touching his cock. Blair's pulse shot up so fast it made Jim dizzy to hear it. It roared in his ears like a tornado.

"He knew you could hear us? You told him about your senses?"

Jim groaned. Only Blair's voice could make that sound erotic, like decadent, sloppy, kinky sex. "He guessed. He… Chief, please. No more talking. You're killing me here."

Blair's cock was hard as stone, a truncheon with steel teeth and denim skin stabbing into his hip. He rocked into it, groaning, and Blair grabbed his head, clamped it. Savaged his mouth, making up for all the soft, hot words and the feathery breaths and the barely there touches. He bit Jim's tongue and licked his lips and scraped teeth against his teeth. Swallowed his cry of ecstasy.

Jim arched back, thrusting high enough that his cock slid over soft flannel, hard enough that his balls tightened, ready to spill. He arched his back and spread his legs and grabbed onto the round corners of the refrigerator with both hands.

And Blair stepped back.

The release was so abrupt, Jim almost fell. All that had been holding him up was his arousal. The need to keep as much of his body in contact with Blair's as possible. Without that, he didn't think his legs would work.

Blair opened the top button of his shirt, leaned for another hard, demanding kiss. "You look really hot there, but I don't think our first time should be on the refrigerator. Do you?"

Jim shook his head dumbly, trying to work some blood back into his brain, not sure if he was saying yes or no. Or if he cared where their first time was, so long as there was a second time.

Blair walked away, shedding his shirt as he went. Tossing it across the back of the couch as he passed. He paused with one foot on the stairs. Casually flicked open the button his jeans. "Come upstairs, Jim, and we can do anything you want." Then he started up, peeling off his t-shirt as he went.

Jim suddenly found the strength to follow the trail of clothing. Shirt. T-shirt. Tennis shoes. Belt. At the head of the stairs, crumpled denim, one sock peeking out from under. And on his bed… Blair. Naked. Waiting for him. Reclining on his elbows with one knee canted out to the side. Body on display. Cock hard, pointing up his belly and beckoning.

Jim crawled over him, knees and elbows threatening to unlock. He remembered he'd wanted Blair to crawl onto the bed, up over him, but this was good. This was very good. Moving up over Blair, straddling his thighs, leaning down to let his cock kiss Blair's. Blair's was wet, the head all slick and shiny, and he slid down. Took it in his mouth.

Big as a plum and shiny smooth. Salt taste thick as honey, but not quite sweet. He tasted so good. Felt so good. All this time, living with the dry, silky, musk scent of Blair's arousal, and finally he had it on his tongue, in his hands.

Blair dropped his head back. His hair brushed the mattress, teasing the sheet. "Oh, that's good, Jim. So good."

But that wasn't— They weren't the right words. Blair was supposed to say, You're so good at that. No. You're too damn good at that. And the tone wasn't right. There was arousal there, in Blair's husky voice. But where was the passion, the laughter?

Blair fell back flat on the bed, tilted his hips up, begging for more. Dug his fingers in the back of Jim's head, demanding more.

With one last, reluctant lick, Jim let him go. Crawled up until he was face to face with Blair. Losing himself in those blue eyes. He'd never felt such tenderness for anyone, not in his whole life. It hurt, and he didn't quite know what to do with it. How to get it out of his chest. "You should go," he said, before he could lose his nerve. "You should go with Skinner. I'll be okay."

"What?!" Blair struggled beneath him. Pushed himself up so fast he almost butted Jim in the mouth.

"I heard him ask you."

"Then you must have heard me tell him no."

Jim rolled off to the side, covered his eyes with his forearm. Reached for something to cover his erection, but the sheet was tangled under Blair.

Shouldn't have an erection, not while he was saying these words, but he couldn't shut it off. Couldn't shut out Blair, the smell of him and the heat of him. "I heard you tell him you couldn't leave me. Not that you didn't want to. I know you chose to stay, and it means a lot." It meant the world, but there was only so much revealing he could do in one day. And he had just about run his limit. "But I can't let you do this. I'll be okay."

"Idiot." Blair shook his head and loomed up over him, exasperation and affection wiping away his frown and making the word sound like an endearment. "That wasn't what I said. I said I can't leave you, and I can't. But not because I can't. Because you're it for me, Jim. You're…"

Jim swallowed. The muscles in his chest clamped down. And there was that panicky scream, rumbling around in the pit of his stomach again.

"You're it. The one. It. The whole enchilada." Blair slid over next to him, draped a knee across his thigh, stroked back and forth over the ridges of his ribs. Pressed a kiss to his brow.

"I don't— I don't know. I didn't know."

"That's how it's always been for me, man. From the day you slammed me into that wall. That's why I followed you that day. Because I knew I couldn't let you get away. I've wanted to tell you for so long. But I didn't think you were ever gonna get here, where I could tell you. I mean, you just have this thing about being independent. About being in control. You only date women you couldn't possibly fall in love with. And guys are like cannon fodder, good for getting off, but not good enough to bring home. I've wanted you for so long, but I don't want to be just another one night stand. Or an impossibility."

Jim covered his eyes again. Mulder saw possibilities, and Blair saw impossibilities. And all Jim saw was bits and pieces that he couldn't connect into a whole. But Blair laid it all out so succinctly. Everything he'd been struggling to fit together all week. Blair already knew it. Condensed it down into ten sentences or less. Jim Ellison in one paragraph. And Blair understood. Accepted it. Accepted him. Warts and all.

He closed his eyes for a moment. Breathed in the air of his home, of his bed with Blair in it. It was better than confession, having that weight next to him. He rolled over onto his stomach, spreading his legs and burying his face in the sheet. Already trembling with anticipation.

Blair breathed in audibly. His palm ran the line from shoulder to thigh, slowing as it passed over the curve of Jim's ass.

Jim pushed up, just a little, with his hips. It was as close as he could come to asking for what he wanted.

He looked over his shoulder at Blair and spread his knees wider. "You said we could do whatever I wanted." Grinned when Blair gasped in a breath and raked him from head to toe with that hot, blue gaze. He could get used to Blair looking at him like that. To hearing that quick-stroke in his heartbeat.

Blair caressed his ass again. Fingers trailing over his skin. Nails scratching lightly along the crease, and Jim shifted. Opening himself up, granting permission.

Blair touched him. When he shivered and pushed up for more, the finger came back wet and slick. Circled around, making his muscles quiver and tighten. Then loosen. Pleasure shot through him as if Blair was striking matches on his body. Raking them over his skin. Sparks trailing and spitting, running along his nerves like fire racing for a fuse.

Blair pushed, and his body opened, then tensed. Wanting the invasion, but resisting it.

"Jim? Have you done this before?"

"Yeah. I just never liked it much. I mean, I like it. It feels good. I just don't like—" He shuffled through words long unused and dusty, looking for the right combination.

Blair kissed his shoulder, dragging a raspy tongue along the curve of the bone. "You don't like giving up control of your body. Being so vulnerable with someone you don't trust."

He shivered. Warts and all. "Yes."

"We don't have to do this now. We could—"

"I want to. I trust you. I— When you were in Skinner, it was… I couldn't believe he—"

"Sh-h-h." Blair covered Jim's mouth with his fingers. "Don't. Don't get me started with that again, because it makes me crazy. Save that for another time, and you can tell me everything you and Mulder did. Everything you thought. And I'll let you drive me wild." Blair's eyelids drooped, heavy and hot with promise. "But tonight, there should just be you and me here. Just us in this bed. Okay?"

Jim nodded, dumbstruck again by the depth of Blair's power over him, by Blair's understanding and his own response to it.

Blair walked on his knees over to the nightstand, and Jim rose up on his elbows to look at him. He'd never had a woman in his bed who could rival that sensuous curve from shoulder to thigh. His fingers twitched with wanting to trace it.

Blair rummaged though the drawer, found lube and condoms. "Come here. Let's try something."

Jim crawled to him, reaching greedily, but Blair shifted from under his hands. Moved Jim, guiding him until he lay on his back, propped half on Blair, half on the bed. Almost on his side, his neck supported by the hard strength of Blair's arm, his knee lifted to expose him to slick, stroking fingers. "Is this okay?"

Jim nodded, tension catching at him again Blair popped the lid on the lube and the slick, sweet scent wafted out. But he liked it like this. Lying so close to Blair, warmed by him, cradled by him. Still free to move.

Blair kissed along his face tenderly, from hairline to jaw and back again, taking his attention from what his fingers were doing. "It's so good to touch you like this. To know you trust me."

Jim closed his eyes. Gave himself up to the touch of Blair's mouth. To the hypnotism of Blair's voice saying all the right things, in just the right tone. Blair's fingers moved in him, and he couldn't remember them getting there. Couldn't remember any pain, or stretching. Just slick, delicious movement.

"You know that I'm going to make this so good for you that you're going to scream?"

He laughed out loud. "God, Sandburg, what an ego." Then gasped with surprise and pleasure as Blair stroked his prostate. The matches clawed at his skin again, hissing as they struck and caught. He might just go ahead and scream now.

Blair managed the condom one handed. Ripped it open with his teeth and had it half unrolled down his cock when Jim reached to help. He didn't need to help, but he hadn't really gotten his hands on that sturdy cock yet. Not the way he wanted to.

Blair squirted lube for him, and he stroked it on. Losing himself in touching, making sure every inch was covered. Pumping and pumping, shadowing the moves with his hips because his own cock was jealous and neglected. It felt good to be this comfortable with someone, to be so easy and mellow and so tense with wanting to come, but in no real rush to finish it.

Then Blair said hoarsely, "Enough."

Blair shifted him around, still holding him so securely, and pulled his knee up into an odd, cocked angle. Shifted and shifted, rubbing against him, stroking against him until he was ready to yell, and finally, Blair's cock seated against him. Steady and hot and blunt, teasing the muscle unbearably, but not pushing. And Blair whispered in his ear, "You do it. Whatever you want."

He understood, finally, the position and the awkward angle of his knee and the way Blair was taking so much of his weight. Giving him the control. Always giving him what he needed and accepting what he needed. Trusting him. Making it possible for him to trust.

He pushed down and Blair held steady and something clicked. That directional arrow that had been fluttering in him all his life, that Blair sometimes sent spinning in a different direction, found true north. Found home and snapped into place. Connected. He was connected. A connection like he'd never had with anyone in his life.

He let his weight take him down, pierce him, crying out with the pleasure and the sweet, brief pain.

Blair sighed in his ear. "God, Jim, you are so hot. So hard. It's so good to be in you." Blair bit him and kissed the marks and rocked up slowly into him. "So good. You're so beautiful."

Jim moaned and started to move, increasing the pace, and Blair whispered, "Stroke yourself. Touch yourself while I watch."

As he did what Blair asked, the words went on and on. Blair's voice, not so controlled as it normally was, but so sweet. Telling him how good he was and how tight and beautiful and exquisite he was and how good he sounded. That voice, and words no one had ever applied to him. And he let go and just moved, hard and fast and sure. Finding just the right angle and just the right pace, and he couldn't remember why he'd ever disliked being fucked. Being so full and so stretched and so invaded. He couldn't wait to do it with Blair on top of him, pressing him into the mattress.

It felt like he'd made love to Blair a thousand times before. Like Blair had been in him before, a part of him. And it had always been like this for them, in sync and in step. He hadn't been in any rush, but he suddenly couldn't wait. And he said only, "I'm close."

Blair gasped, "Jim. Oh, Jim." And froze. And it was Blair who shouted, who gave a strangled scream and surging into frenzied motion. Digging up at him. Coming in him. Swelling up hard and pulsing in rhythm to his heart.

Jim whimpered and fell back, and let Blair take his weight. He moaned as he came because he knew Blair wanted to hear him. His orgasm flowered and flowered and billowed out over him. Spilled in hot, wet splatters. Ever widening circles of pleasure, putting out the fire and washing away the streaks where the matches had raked at his skin.

And when he was through, shaking and weak, Blair was still there, holding him. Arms wrapped tight, cradling his head, palm splayed over his heart, one leg supporting his bent knee. His voice was still there, crooning against his skin, bringing him down the same way it had lifted him up.

Like Mulder, Blair had one of those cocks that didn't deflate very fast, and it was still ballooned inside him, throbbing with sluggish aftershocks. When he eased away, it left Jim feeling hollowed out, exposed, but not empty. Just content and limp and open.

Blair disposed of the condom, tugged at a corner of the sheet and swiped at himself, then leaned over Jim to wipe his belly and his fingers and his still so sensitive cock.

Then Blair pulled him back over onto his body. "Wow," he said simply.

"Uhm-m," was all Jim could manage as he slumped, letting Blair take his weight again, enjoying the heartbeat against his back. Any real words would just have been tainted with smug, stupid delirium anyway.

Blair stroked his fingers through his hair and said lazily, "I should wash up."

The thought of the awkwardness of trading places in the bathroom was enough to rouse Jim, to make his sluggish muscles work again. He rolled, slid, pinned the smaller body beneath his. "Not yet." He didn't want to be alone in the bed. Didn't want the loss of weight and warmth.

Blair went limp, threw his arms wide, laughed up at him, eyes droopy and sated. "If you don't mind sweaty and sticky, I'm all yours, man."

Jim traced the soft, tender skin from Blair's elbow to his ribs. "I could get used to sweaty and sticky."

And he leaned down for his first really sane sensing of his lover. Touching all the places he'd never been able to touch before, to savor the things that had skimmed past him in the last few minutes. The differences in skin texture and body hair. In scent and taste. Blair's neck, right at the hairline, smelled like peaches, but tasted salty, and his lips smelled salty but tasted of creamy salad dressing and Jim. His nipples smelled glossy but felt pebbled. The center of his chest, where the hair was thick and curling was sweeter even than his mouth. And his armpits were okay to nuzzle, but the inside of the elbow sent tiny tremors washing along the skin and caused Blair to wriggle and emit snuffling protests.

He had reached Blair's navel, the whole world of explorations waiting there, when Blair

pushed at his shoulder. "Jim. Jim. Man, come on. I love being sniffed and chewed like a new dog in the neighborhood, but I've got to get up."

Jim rolled the side, setting Blair free. After all, if he investigated everything now, what would there be to do later? And he grinned, happy and satisfied, because he couldn't imagine ever getting tired of going over the same ground. Again and again.

"You know what the old dog does to the new dog in the neighborhood, don't you, Chief? He raised and lowered his eyebrows, not caring that the joy that swelled up inside of him was spilling over into silliness.

Blair laughed and shook his head, eyeing him suspiciously.

Jim grabbed him and tossed him over on his back. Pushed his knees back towards his chest. Leaned down and nuzzled his face into Blair's groin. His tongue snaked out traced the length of his sticky cock, and his semen was sweetest of all Blair's tastes. He tickled Blair's balls and the insides of his thighs. He paused, looked up. "The old dog sniffs the new dog's—"

"Jim!" Laughing helplessly, Blair struggled, tried to kick his feet free. Grabbed his sides, then his saliva shiny cock. "Oh, man, don't. I've got to go to the bathroom. You're gonna make me pee on myself."

Jim stopped as abruptly as he'd started. Gave Blair a push on his shoulder to help him up. He hesitated, not quite sure he dared what he was thinking, but it was preferable to the alternative. To lying there remembering and wanting that intimacy. "Okay if I join you?"

Blair paused at the head of the stairs.

Jim drew in a breath at the sight of a smiling, naked, sex rumpled Blair looking back over his shoulder at him. The sun had almost set, and the only light in the room was from the windows below. It cast Blair's profile in a warm glow, turned his hair into a rainbow of brown and gold. Shadowed the curve of waist and hip and ass.

Blair tilted his head, looked at him quizzically. But he said only, "Sure. Come on."

Jim was going to have to answer questions later for that request. He could see it in his partner's face, but he didn't care.

 

*****

 

"Hey, Chief?" Jim turned down the flame underneath the soup he'd decided to heat up for lunch as he called up towards the loft bedroom. "Sandburg, front and center."

Overhead, the bed squeaked. A foot, then something round, then another foot hit the floor. The round thing, probably a pencil, rolled, the feet padding behind it. After a couple of curses, the escaped object was found and tossed back onto the bed.

A moment later, Blair appeared at the rail, backlit by the warm light pouring through the skylight. He clutched his glasses in one hand and a hair tie in the other. A strand of his hair was sticking out at an odd angle, and he was bare-chested, barefoot, wearing his house jeans. Jim's favorite's, the ones with paint spots and rips in the knees and a practically threadbare seat. He was eagerly anticipating the day rips appeared there. They were only half zipped, barely hanging on Blair's narrow hips, showing not even a sliver of underwear beneath.

Jim stared, the hand holding the spoon hovering in midair. Taken by the sight of his partner and questioning why these little frozen moments of wonder kept happening to him. Like something out of a sappy romance novel, moments when he was struck dumb by Blair's radiance and his beauty and the way he could make even ruined denim look like sex.

Two days since they'd become lovers, years now that he'd seen Blair every day… He couldn't possibly look different this morning than he had last Tuesday morning when he cooked breakfast dressed only in boxers and an undershirt. Or two weeks ago, when he walked through with only a towel wrapped around his waist and water droplets clinging to his chest. Or last year, when they went fishing in Canada and Blair fell in and had to sit by the fire all afternoon wrapped in a blanket. He couldn't possibly look different now. So why did he?

Blair did a classic movie double take, glanced back over his shoulder to find whatever had Jim mesmerized. "What?"

"Must be the light," Jim mumbled, suddenly aware that he was dripping broth all over the counter. He turned away, cupping his hand under the spoon.

"Jim-m-m… You called me?"

"Oh." He twisted, looking for the dish towel. "Skinner's on his way up."

"So soon?" Blair's heart did that little Skinner-blip. "It's way too early for them to be on the way to the airport."

Jim was feeling so mellow this morning, he didn't even mind Blair's reaction. Well, not too much. But enough that he was glad Mulder and Skinner were heading home.

The last two days had been nerve wracking. Simon had agreed to let the case go cold, but Skinner had knuckled under to Mulder's insistence that they at least try to find the other lookalikes. Between Mulder's frenzy to find something and Skinner's insistence that they proceed with snail-like caution, then Mulder's frustration and fury when they finally had to admit defeat, it was a wonder Jim hadn't shot somebody. Even worse had been seeing Blair with Skinner, watching them put their heads together and discover a new joy in working together, seeing how crazy Blair was about the guy. Still worse was having to admit, finally, that Skinner was okay and a damn good cop and as trustworthy as Blair had said he was. It was worse, knowing that he'd been wrong, worse than when he didn't trust Skinner, because now he knew, hands on, what he stood to lose if Blair changed his mind.

"Is Mulder with him?"

Jim stopped the swish, wipe, swish of the cloth, tilted his head a little, listened.

Skinner was alone in the elevator, just passing the second floor. Mulder was sitting in the car in the parking lot, fiddling with the station settings on the radio.

"No. He's in the car."

Blair slipped his glasses on, tossed the hair tie back towards the bed.

"If I wake up with that thing in my butt, Chief, I'm tossing it out."

Blair disappeared from sight, voice floating playfully back down to him. "If you wake with something in your butt, lover, I'd appreciate it if you check what it is before you toss it out."

Jim waited, grinning up, for Blair to stick his head back over the rail and leer. When he did, Jim assured him, "We'll make it a rule." So far, he hadn't awakened that way, but Blair did have some innovative substitutions for an alarm clock.

"Yeah, I need another one of those." Blair struggled with his jeans, trying to get the beat-up, crooked zipper to work. "I was hoping Mulder would come up."

"He will." Jim waited until Skinner raised his hand to knock before he opened the door. Smiling blandly, Jim pretended not to notice Skinner's surprise or subsequent frown at having the door snatched out from under his knuckles. "Come in."

Skinner stepped across the threshold, his hesitant body language a far cry from the self-possessed man who'd dominated Simon's office only days before. He was wearing the same long, elegant coat he'd worn that day, but with a different suit, this one single breasted, and a shirt so white Jim wanted to blink his eyes.

Skinner's gaze flitted around the room, skirted over him, slowed at his chest, then slid away. The quickly hooded appreciation made Jim glad he'd chosen the tight, black t-shirt instead of the loose pullover he'd originally pulled blindly out of the closet. Made him want to puff out his chest even further, as did the sight of Blair, bouncing down the stairs.

"Walter." Blair had put on a pair of Jim's socks and was buttoning his shirt.

His jeans were zipped, Jim was glad to note. The memory of him, naked in Skinner's arms, still had the power to make Jim sweat, but he wasn't so sure he wanted Skinner tempted by that half closed zipper now that Blair was his.

Blair stopped at the couch, the spring in his walk slowly eking away so that the last couple of steps were leaden. "You're early. Did your flight change?"

"We're driving to Seattle and catching a flight from there. Scully called, and Mulder wants to connect up with her. And I haven't seen the Seattle office since I left. I thought it'd be nice to look around. Watch them all scramble when they get an unannounced visit from an A.D."

Blair tried to grin, but ended up only grimacing and scuffing a toe on the floor, all that radiance dampened.

Jim couldn't help it. He shifted a little closer to Blair, a little closer to Skinner. He'd promised himself he wouldn't flaunt the two of them in front of the man. He didn't know how Skinner had reacted when Blair told him they were together, but Jim couldn't imagine feeling anything but despondent at losing Blair a second time. He offered his hand to Skinner. "Have a safe trip."

Down on the street, Mulder shut off the radio and climbed out of the car.

"Thanks." Skinner's body language was a little different, and so was the handshake. Still strong and sure, but more like the greeting he'd given Blair that first morning. Holding on just a bit longer, fingers clinging. "You take care of Blair." Skinner met his gaze with a look that said he knew what his options were if Jim didn't.

"You know I will."

Blair brushed Jim's hand as he was drawing it back, slipping past into Skinner's arms. He went inside the coat, just like that first day, and Skinner wrapped him up automatically. Glancing at Jim as if he expected him to protest.

"I'll miss you." Blair muffled his face in Skinner's shoulder. "And this is not good-bye," he said fiercely. "Right, Jim?"

Their scents, mingled, wafted up to Jim. Shades of that first day, again, except that mixed in with the scent of the two men was his own scent, part of Blair's now. "No. You're always welcome here."

Skinner stepped back, disentangling himself from Blair. "The same for the two of you. If you're ever in DC…"

The elevator creaked to a stop, and Mulder ambled along the hallway, paused outside, but didn't knock.

Jim opened the door with even more of a flourish this time, because he knew what was waiting. Mulder was propped in the doorway, posing, one arm draped overhead on the frame, one stuck in a pocket, holding his coat back in an elegant sweep. Like a model in a magazine, he looked lanky and graceful and cocky. And absolutely gorgeous. He grinned at Jim like they'd pulled off a difficult magic trick.

"Agent Mulder." There was a low, warning, questioning note to Skinner's voice, a reprimand at the invasion, but his gaze flicked over Mulder. It was appreciative even if his voice wasn't.

"Sir," Mulder answered. He was in silky mode, Jim noted. Wired and ready for mischief. "I came up to say good-bye."

Skinner plainly thought Mulder didn’t need to make any farewells, but he didn't say anything.

"And I needed to return this to Jim." Mulder pulled a book from under his arm. "Thanks for suggesting it. And you left this in it. I thought it might be important."

He handed Jim the book, opened to a business card. Another one of Mulder's. Pristine white, with the raised Bureau logo in one corner. And on the back, printed with precise, clear strokes, Mulder's personal numbers for home and cell phone. Scully's numbers in case he couldn't get Mulder. And a note at the bottom, in a cramped script, _In case you ever need to exchange information…_

"Thanks." Jim turned to put the book on the counter, shielding the cover on which the author's name was printed in big, bold letters. "I've got something for you, too."

Blair recognized the book anyway. "Jim, you didn't…" His mouth dropped open and hot spots of color blossomed on his cheeks.

Jim gently pushed up on his jaw with the tips of two fingers as he passed him on his way to the couch. "It'll be okay, Chief." 

He fished in the pocket of his leather jacket, drew out a long, slender plastic box, tied with a single strand of green ribbon. He handed it to Mulder.

Puzzled, Mulder took it and opened it. It was a toothbrush, white with a black trim, almost like the one Jim had broken, but in a protective traveling case.

Mulder laughed aloud and gave Jim a good, hard, back thumping hug. He ended it by letting his fingers linger just a little too long on the bristly hair at the back of his neck. "Thanks, Detective. You don't miss a thing, do you?" His eyes were bright, hot, deliberately provocative, so broadly flirtatious that there was no doubt he was provoking Skinner.

Jim wasn't sure if he was glad he didn't have to ride to Seattle shut in a car with the man, or jealous that he'd miss the fun.

Behind him, the provocation worked just fine. Two heartbeats pumped overtime, Blair's rising up the blip scale rapidly, sending out a rush of torrid air, Skinner grinding away at his enamel in rhythm to his pulse. 

Jim winked at Mulder before turning back to his kitchen and his lover, who sounded like he was hyperventilating himself towards a faint. "Like to watch, do you?" he murmured as he moved past.

"You are such a dick," Blair said plainly, affectionately, not caring if the other two heard. But the sadness had lifted from his voice, and the radiance was back. 

Blair stuck out his hand to Skinner. "You two be careful. And call us when you get home, okay?"

Skinner looked from Mulder, fidgeting in the doorway, obviously ready to get going, to Jim leaning against the kitchen counter, arms crossed, an easy smile on his face, to Blair, smiling up at him with repressed laughter and open love shining in his face. To the book, lying facedown on the counter. With the name printed in huge letters on the spine. His eyes widened.

Jim almost felt sorry for the guy. His innate stiffness, the dignity that he wore like skin, wouldn't allow him to acknowledge what was going on around him. Maybe if Mulder hadn't been standing there, shifting from one foot to the other, looking at him with that sharp-as-a-fox gaze…

Skinner took Blair's hand. "I'll call you tonight."

Jim suppressed a grin. That was a threat if he'd ever heard one. Blair was in so much trouble…

Blair wasn't any more intimidated by a Skinner growl than he was by an Ellison one. He glanced up in time to see Mulder wave and disappear down the hall, then pulled himself into Skinner's body with his grip on his hand. Hugged him hard. "Anytime, man. Anytime." He pressed a kiss to the corner of Skinner's mouth. "Love you. You be careful."

Jim's estimation of the man went up a notch. Though Skinner had no idea that Mulder had walked away, he didn't flinch from Blair's show of affection. His arms went around the smaller man and tightened briefly and his mouth grazed Blair's hairline, that spot at the temple that tasted like pears. "I love you, too." Then he stepped away. Walked out of the door without glancing back. Strode off down the hallway after Mulder, who had already pushed the elevator button three times.

Jim couldn't decide whether he wanted to burst with tenderness or burn with jealousy or shout with triumph. There was a tight, little place inside that had never unwound, despite falling asleep in Blair's arms and waking to his morning kisses. And now, seeing Skinner walk away and Blair still there beside him, it started to unfurl.

Blair closed the door, lingering for a moment, fingers resting on the knob, face pensive.

Jim rested his fingers on Blair's, stroked the fine hairs on the back his hand. Leaned into his broad back just a little, reassuring his body with warmth and touch that Blair was still there. He knew it was illogical, because even if Blair hadn't told Skinner he couldn't leave, he'd still made his choice three nights ago in Jim's bed. And he still could walk out any time he chose. But Jim felt like Blair had chosen him again. Once more. For the final time.

"Man…I cannot believe you gave Mulder that book. What did you tell him?"

Jim stroked his hands up Blair's arms. Rested his fingers on his shoulders and his thumbs under the heavy fall of Blair's hair. "Just that he needed to go a little slower and pay more attention to the people around him and the choices they make. And that he should ask Skinner to teach him to hear the mermaid's singing."

"Jim…" Blair rolled his forehead on the door, his voice wavering between exasperation and laughter. "That is such a complicated situation. It's just not that simple for them."

Jim massaged the tension in his shoulders. "It can be, Chief, if they just take the leap. The rest of it will work out somehow. But Skinner's like me. Without somebody to push him, he's never going to take the chance. And I felt like…I owed him a chance."

A chance he was obviously going to get soon, as the elevator alarm sounded, indicating that somebody had hit the emergency button and stopped it between floors.

//"Agent Mulder, what the hell are you—?!"// Then Skinner's breath huffed out as Mulder moved in on him, and there obviously wasn't any question as to what Mulder was doing.

Jim laughed softly and rested his chin on Blair's head.

"What?"

"So much for Mulder slowing down. He stopped the elevator, and he's pinned Skinner in the corner."

"Oh, man." Blair snickered, too. "Poor Walter."

Skinner's coat swished against the steel wall of the car. //"Mulder, this is completely—"// The words broke and gave way before a hissing intake of breath. //"—out of line."// Each word came out slower, with less force. //"I'm your…"// Until finally, they were swallowed up in a groan and followed by the sound of air puffing over skin.

Jim's cock jumped in sympathy, in recognition.

Blair rocked back into him. "What's Mulder doing to him?"

Jim slid one hand around to the front of Blair's jeans. With the other, he pulled Blair's collar away from his neck. He pressed down hard on Blair's cock at the same time he blew a stream of feathery cool air down into his shirt.

Blair jerked. Moaned. Rocked his hips forward, trapping Jim's hand between his rapidly filling cock and the door.

//"Agent Mulder, this is totally—"// The words broke, giving way before another hiss. //"—inappropriate."// 

Then Skinner spoke more forcefully, as if he was dragging himself out of a Mulder-induced stupor. //"Agent Mulder."//

Mulder shut him up with a kiss. If Skinner's moan and the boneless slump into the wall of the elevator were any indication, it would register on the Richter scale.

Jim leaned into Blair, pressing his own growing erection into that tight ass, stopping the slow roll of hips against the door and his hand. "I wish you could say that to me," he whispered, not daring to speak the words aloud, surprised and exhilarated and frightened that he dared to say them at all.

Blair turned his head so that Jim was breathing on his temple. "Say what?"

"That…love thing that you say to Skinner."

Blair's heart thumped, echoing in the door, through the wood. It set the whole apartment to reverberating with his rhythm. "I can say it to you. I'll shout it from the roof if you want me to, just as long as you're ready."

Blair reached back and wrapped his arms around him as much as he could, flattening his palms on Jim's thighs, and spoke into the door. "But be sure, Jim, because it won't mean the same thing that it does with Walter. I'll always care about him. He will…always make my heart race. But I lived with him two years, and I loved him, and when it was time, I let him go. He let me go. It didn't mean forever for us. But that's what it will mean if I say it to you. And I just want to be sure you're ready to commit to that."

Jim leaned in just a bit more, touching his forehead to the side of Blair's forehead, rubbing gently against skin and curls. Teasing himself with the heat and scent-aura of Blair. "I think I'm ready. Whenever you're ready to say it."

Blair turned, moving carefully so that Jim didn't have to step away. Stopped in the circle of Jim's arms, lay his palm on Jim's heart and met his gaze squarely, without blinking. "I love you."

Jim swallowed up the words. Breathed them into his lungs, down into his bloodstream and felt the champagne of them bubble through his veins, his marrow. Become part of his flesh. He followed the flow down to Blair's mouth.

Kissed him fiercely, tenderly. The way he'd always wanted to kiss Blair, with handfuls of curls crushed in his palms, strands like twisted ribbons pouring through his fingers. Blair tasted of pencil lead and breakfast and toothpaste and…Jim. His body, his semen from their lovemaking that morning. His saliva from their kisses.

"Blair…" he whispered it hoarsely, trying to find the other words. The words, like I'm sorry, that came so easily to other people. He nuzzled Blair's forehead, hiding himself in the taste and scent. Afraid that if he tried to speak, his throat would close, and all the tenderness, the belief, that had been building would suddenly shrink. He waited for that tight place to grind down again, but it didn't.

"I love you, too, Chief."

Blair rested his head on Jim's shoulder. Caressed the back of his neck with light strokes of his fingers. Quiet and calm and peaceful.

The whine of the elevator alarm ceased. In the background, Jim had been aware of the sounds generated by the struggling of two strong bodies, two strong wills. The protests becoming whimpers and soft sighs, and the rustle of clothing being rumpled and wrinkled. He shifted his attention slightly, keeping Blair and the hum of his body and the slow stroking of his hands close, but checking to make sure Mulder and Skinner were okay.

The elevator clanged as it bounced to a stop on the first floor. The doors opened, and Mulder stepped out.

"Jim?" Blair touched his face, stroking lightly. "Jim, you okay?"

He held up his hand, signaling for Blair to wait. To let him listen.

Mulder stepped out of the elevator alone, just his footsteps moving off the carpeted floor into the foyer. Skinner didn't move from where he was braced in the corner. He barely breathed. Jim could hear his knuckles whitening as he gripped the hand rail.

"Jim?"

"Sh-h-h… they're okay. I think Walter's just having an Ellison moment."

"A what?"

"Sh-h-h."

Mulder turned, gritting a whorl into the tile with the leather sole of his shoe. "You coming?" It was a strangely un-Mulderlike voice, tender, without the silky, insolent jeer that usually simmered just below the surface of whatever he was saying.

//"We can't do this, Mulder. Think about what you're risking."//

Oh, yeah, definitely an Ellison moment. Hanging on by just the tip of his fingernails dug into steel.

The doors started closing. Mulder slipped through just in time. //"Let's see,"// he teased. //"Hot sex, companionship, romance, really hot sex. I am thinking about it."// He took Skinner's arm, pulled. //"Come on."// But Skinner resisted.

Mulder leaned in and slid his hand to the back of Skinner's head, fingertips tracing over the smooth scalp. Down his broad back. Pulling him forward until their foreheads touched, holding him just like Blair was holding Jim.

//"It's okay,"// Mulder whispered. //"The mermaids sing to me all the time. I'll teach you."//


End file.
